It Occurs To Me: Lanzarote, Rory Gallagher and DRT (Donegal Replacement Therapy)!

The elderly English gentleman was fascinated and flabbergasted to say the least, after watching Donegal v Galway: “Are those guys on some kind of HRT?”

“No!” I assured him, “it’s called DRT…Jim McGuinness gets them in at half time and injects them with it.”

He laughed: “DRT?” “Yes,” I said, “Donegal Replacement Therapy…it’s a wonder drug. I wish I could get an odd blast of it myself!”

He laughed uproariously and told me he’d just wandered into Rory Gallagher’s Irish Viking in Lanzarote to be met by a plethora of Celtic and Donegal jerseys.

Many supporters were managing to watch both on the various screens, and the banter and atmosphere was wonderful.

Frank Galligan with Rory Gallagher and his parents, Paul and Mary B, in Lanzarote

He loved the craic. Two draws! Who would have guessed? When Michael Murphy came onto the Ballyshannon pitch, the roar was visceral and the DRT was motoring!

I was delighted to meet up with Rory’s parents, Paul and Mary B, and reminded them how a very enthusiastic gang of us went to see them back in March 1974, when they had entered the Pepsi-Cola All-Ireland Super Group Competition and won their way through to the finals of the competition in Caesar’s Palace in Dublin.

They won the contest over several Dublin-based groups and took home £550, as well as a recording session at Eamon Andrews Studios.

I’ll never forget the excitement and the cheering which seriously annoyed some supporters of one of the Dublin groups, and they got a bit testy with us.

A few ‘In Through’ words in their ears soon put an end to that nonsense! Rory’s next album, Nine will be released on Friday, April 24, there’s a sneak preview in John Joe’s in Kilcar on 25th and Whelan’s in Dublin on 26th.

Meanwhile the first single from it will be released on March 25, called I’m Never Drinking Again. He sang it one of the nights in Lanzarote and it’s a cracker.

It’s a homage to all the Irish Nobel winners who liked a ‘wee’ drink!

One verse goes: “Beckett was on the beer, Waiting for a Godot to appear, But he never did, So we sat and watched the hurling!”

He told me it was inspired after watching an old Monty Python clip where the Greek philosophers take on the Germans in a game of soccer: “Socrates, lovely pass to Plato, Oh, Plato dispossessed by Karl Marx…lovely run.”

As well as being a great performer who can read a crowd like no other, it’s his quirky sense of humour which endears him to his audiences.

Karl from Newcastle was celebrating his 60th with family and friends and the Geordies love Rory.

They’d been holidaying in Puerto Del Carmen for years and never missed a gig, so enamoured are they of the very talented Kilcar man.

On his new album, dad Paul will play pedal steel Kilcar and Damien McGeehan from Onóir on fiddle. A good move releasing a drink song a week after St Patrick’s Day when the nation is recovering.

Next year, he hopes to record a song by The Cure!

It’s a great story which began in 1973, when Paul and Jody Gallagher along with John Joe McBrearty were schoolmates at Holy Cross College in Falcarragh and decided to start a band.

They drafted drummer Steven “Nobby” Dorrian from the Killybegs AOH accordion band and the final piece of the puzzle was added when local singer Mary B Cannon joined as lead vocalist.

They soon earned a summer residency on Wednesdays in Fintra House near Killybegs and were soon on the road.

Happy days and wonderful memories.

Fast forward to 1995 when he, his parents Mary B and Paul, travelled up to Derry to be special guests on my morning programme on BBC Radio Foyle, and Rory sang Runaway Train, the Grammy Award-winning million seller by Soul Asylum in 1993.

He was 15 years old! His new album will be his ninth official release, including three with the brilliant The Revs in the early noughties.

His previous album was in 2022 entitled Centre Falls Apart and received fantastic critical response on its release, quickly becoming RTÉ’s album of the week, reaching number 8 on the indie breakers charts, producing 3 iTunes top five singles and leading to two sold-out Irish and UK tours, culminating in a very coveted slot on the BBC main stage at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh.

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When I met him, he was fresh from supporting The 2 Johnnies in the 3 Arena to a crowd of some 13,000!

I was delighted to meet his wife Cara and sons Shay and Aidan. As they say in her native Scotland, “Lang may yer lum reek!”, a traditional blessing that translates to “Long may your chimney smoke”.

The GAA/Allianz controversy

I thought Jarlath Burns got it terribly wrong in his response to the anti-Allianz protest at the GAA annual congress. He reminded protestors that he “didn’t need any lessons on illegal occupation having grown up during the Troubles”.

“I don’t need any lectures or people shouting in my face about what it’s like to go to bed at night fearful that somebody would barge into your bedroom and riddle you with bullets because that was my lived experience when I was young.”

His friend was murdered by the notorious UVF Glenanne gang and that, admittedly, was dreadful, but in the context of the Allianz protest, it sounded out of kilter. I agree with Peter Canavan who thought it a “strange comparison”.

“There were a lot of atrocities went on, and what kept us going was the GAA,” he said.

“We had something to do, something to be part of, and for a lot of us it was the GAA that saved us. There’s thousands of children that aren’t getting that opportunity.

“Jarlath is still sore from something that happened 50 years ago, and rightly so. “He mentioned that there were no convictions on those killings. That was 50 years ago. Why? Because so many people buried their heads in the sand, and didn’t want to know what was going on.”

Right now, there are a lot of heads in the sand and Peter accused the GAA of burying the debate around its Allianz sponsorship deal under the carpet.

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“The burning issue at the minute is this sponsorship, for many people they felt it was side-lined and put under the carpet,” he said.

“That’s not good enough. The GAA palmed it off to the EIC (Ethics and Integrity Commission), they should be big enough to make the decision themselves.”

Let’s remind ourselves that only last year, the UN special rapporteur claimed that Allianz has profited from Israeli forces being in Gaza.

TG4 and wet cameras!

TG4 are looking for volunteers to hold large umbrellas over their pitchside cameras due to the volume of complaints during the National League. If no umbrellas are available, may I suggest Joe Brolly!

More deadly distraction from Trump!

Operation Epstein Distraction got under way on Saturday morning with a deadly strike which destroyed a girl’s primary school in Minab, southern Iran, killing 153 and wounding almost 100.

In a statement released on social media, Unesco expressed deep alarm at the impact of the military attacks, which continued into Sunday, and noted that pupils in a place dedicated to learning are protected under international humanitarian law, and that “attacks against educational institutions endanger students and teachers and undermine the right to education.”

Unesco joined a host of bodies from across the United Nations system and senior officials, including Secretary-General António Guterres, to condemn the military attacks, as well as the retaliatory strikes by Iran that hit several Middle Eastern countries.

The Ayatollah won’t be mourned by many but Trump does not care a fig about the Iranian people…he ‘cares’ about OIL! He had no backing from Congress and his own base is turning on him. But does he really care?

No! Because he knows deep down his number is up and when he departs, he and family and rich friends will have grifted billions of dollars for their self-benefit.

And to think Michéal Martin will smile and present him with a bowl of shamrocks on St Patrick’s Day…how many will be dead by then? I shudder to think.