Author: Trióna Marren O’Grady

  • Going Across the Water

    Many of us have ventured across the water to earn our crust. Or as Christy Moore sings: …..you can’t live on love, on love aloneSo you sail cross the ocean, away cross the foam Missing You, Christy Moore And Gerry certainly did his stint away cross the foam. You might be aware of the recent…

  • Gerry’s dude days in Omagh

    It was a real joy to come across an interview from Omagh Today on Gerry’s dude days in Omagh. Brian DaMuff Murphy posted the interview on The radio ulster Gerry Anderson fan group on Facebook. The group is a wonderful resource and a fabulously friendly community of Gerry’s fans (ourselves included, of course! ;)). As…

  • Tent Life

    Gerry wasn’t a man for camping, or indeed for a tent at all. Neither did he love getting wet, and he certainly did his best at all times to avoid peril. He did not readily welcome discomfort. How ironic was it then, that tents played quite a major part in his early career at events…

  • Are You Baldy Tonight?

    Matters of hair, or its scarcity, placed high on Gerry’s list of priorities. He was particularly follicularly sensitive himself, given what he referred to as his “skylight”, and was always curious to find out how people prevented or treated baldness. So, he took that growing curiosity and put it to work, resulting in the 2012…

  • Life in the Fast Lane – Surviving in Stroke City

    As you might expect, Gerry’s introduction to life as a musician on the road was neither wholly planned, nor strategically timed. Mind you, it wasn’t entirely accidental either as it was bound to happen one way or the other. As a casual musician, he, along with his fellow similarly employed musos, and, of course, the…

  • Back to Sackville Street

    When we write articles for this blog, we draw on memory, the writing, photos and music Gerry left behind, plus the accounts of his friends and those he worked with. So, we get quite a well-rounded picture of Gerry as an adult. I was curious to know a little more about his childhood. So I…

  • Good Friday Agreement Anniversary – 25 Years On…

    Good Friday this year, 2023, marks the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, a true turning point in the course of Northern Ireland’s history. In the recent words of Secretary of State, Chris Heaton-Harris: “The signing of the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement on 10 April 1998 brought an end to 30…

  • Dev, the Queen and St. Patrick Himself

    Hail Glorious St. Patrick! For many of us, St. Patrick’s Day is the day we wrap up in green and flock to local parades to watch blue-kneed, curly-wigged Irish dancers display their talents in front of the judges’ podium (the back of a container lorry). And marching bands bring colour and a sense of occasion…

  • Tying It Up in a Bow

    Rich Pickings There are rich pickings indeed in the Belfast Telegraph column that Gerry wrote over the years – Life According to Gerry. I delight in browsing through the articles and losing myself in the reveries that they offer. In each one, he leads me down various meandering paths that somehow get tied together at…

  • Who Are Your People, Son?

    It’s important to know who you are… who your people are, and where you come from to give you context, grounding and identity. For Gerry, it was Derry. But for his mother’s people, the McLaughlins, that was deepest Donegal. A wee homestead called Shandrum – a two-bedroomed, whitewashed cottage with a series of sheds, a…