John Donovan – A Contemporary Perspective

In 1945 John Donovan travelled to Dublin to record three double-sided gramophone records. He was the first singer from Inishowen whose work was commercially recorded and issued on 78 rpm discs, made of a brittle substance called shellac. Released in 1945-46 under the Regal-Zonophone and Columbia labels, they represent the pinnacle of John’s musical career - a career that sadly was cut short far too soon.

Yet, his gramophone records were treasured in many houses and he was remembered as a great singer; this project seeks to recover those memories for another generation.

John Joseph Donovan was born in Malin Head in 1914. His father, John Gabriel Donovan, from Waterford, was a signalman at the Lloyd’s of London Signal Station on Inishtrahull Island which lies a few miles east of Malin Head. John’s mother, Ellen McLaughlin was of an island family, the Donal Neils, and he lived there following his birth until 1926, when the Signal Station was closed down.

During that time, John was educated at the excellent island school but, possibly more importantly, within the culture of the island itself. Islands are naturally isolated and contain small communities, ideal conditions for singing, dancing and home-made fun. Music making and singing would have been common, “Big Nights”, at any excuse, a birth, a departure, a return, or to entertain holiday-makers in the summer, were common. Photos exist of such gatherings, one with a young John Donovan prominent. Everybody present, young and old, contributed and John was well placed to develop his natural ability. An early interest in music was encouraged by his father who made him a fiddle from a biscuit tin and this was followed by a full-size instrument.

As would be natural, he probably played the common tunes of the area: Varsovienna, Shoe the Donkey and for lancers, quadrilles, highlands and the other dances of the time. It is certain also that he sang, drawing from the Island’s store of song, a repertory probably similar to that of other areas in Inishowen. Further, not unexpectedly, the Lloyds station had good wireless sets (as radios were called) and John’s quick ear allowed him to learn the latest hits; the days before he left the island were the early days of Jazz, of “Who’s sorry now?”, “Yes, we have no bananas”, “California, here I come”, “Keep right on to the end of the road”, “Show me the way to go home” and a now forgotten multitude. Some scraps of songs can be found, hastily noted in the pages of the Signal Station’s last log book. It is also adorned with John’s drawings, he had talent in that direction too: boxing and boxers, football scenes, famous footballers and film stars, and politicians – the latter mostly caricatured! There is a quarto notebook that is full of similar drawings, and song words, fragments and complete. None of these has been recognized, several are about fishing, and it may be that these were written by him. Conclusions await detailed inspection.

The move in 1926, first to Malin Street in Carndonagh, and then to the row of Coastguard Cottages above Malin Head Harbour was a time of upheaval for the family.  John’s father was admitted to St. Conal’s Hospital in Letterkenny, where he remained till his death in 1945, while John’s older brother, Charlie, by that stage 16, was training as a wireless officer and was soon to go to sea.  Little is known of the Donovan’s, and especially of John’s, life in Malin Head. But it was this small intimate community,  interrelated and interdependent, which provided him with further musical experience and an outlet for his talent.

It was a fishing and subsistence farming area, as was much of Inishowen, a place of hard lives and hard living. Yet the hard edge was taken off life by sport: boxing was popular on Inishtrahull and on the mainland, and football; those Inishtrahull summer visitors made up teams to try the skill of the Islanders, and so too in Malin Head. John was keen on both sports and later played in goal for the Malin Head team “The Sea Rovers”.  There are many reports in the papers of the 1930s of the exploits of this often-successful team. Most sporting events were followed by a Big Night, which allowed John’s development as a singer and musician.

However, his transition from school to work was not an easy one. A bright boy and hoping to follow his brother to sea as a wireless operator, he passed the exams but his eyesight let him down and so too when he attempted to enter employment with the Post Office. For want of better, he joined the crew of a local fishing boat owned by a family, the “Biddy James” McGonigles, who had been very prominent on Inistrahull and had relocated to Malin Head with the rest of the population by 1929. They had held the contract for the carriage of stores to the lighthouse and lookout and theirs was known as “The Ballast Office Boat”. It was uncomfortable work, hard and constantly wet, often cold or overheated, and up early to work long hours; hardly a life for a sensitive lad whose delight was music. Nor were Big, late Nights any way to prepare for a day, or longer, of net fishing from an open boat.

A couple of years later, it may have seemed that things could change for, in 1932, Father McNamee, the Curate in Charge at Malin Head, had the idea of forming a small dance band to service events in the Parish Hall, and to reputedly celebrate the election of Éamon de Valera as President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State. Called the Malin Head Victory Dance Band, it had between four and six members. The formation was reported in the Derry Journal of 10 February 1933, and the band is known to have performed in Malin Head on St Patrick’s Night, 1933 and, in 1934, in support of the Parochial Building Fund, in Malin Town. During the first of these John Donovan sang duets with another member of the band, William M’Laughlin, and duetted on fiddle with yet another, Neil Toland (accordion). Other band members were, James Doherty and Neil Mooney.  John was important for the band’s success, his ready ear for the wireless, provided much of its material, rearranged by John to suit its talents. He sought songs widely, perusing the pages of Ireland’s Own and buying sheet music in  the Derry music shops of Davis or Phillips and perhaps ballad sheets though that trade had, by the 1940s, almost died out.

The Victory Band however soon outgrew its parochial origins. There was a dance hall in every parish and many more, sometimes several, in each town or village. The notorious “Public Dance Halls Act” of 1935 required venues to be licensed and effectively ended a long-standing tradition of crossroads and house dances. Dancing became controlled by the police and clergy and benefitted profiteers. The Victory Band became The Seaside Serenaders and led the entertainment in all the halls of Inishowen: Rashenny, Ballyliffin, Clonmany, Urris, the Illies, the Carrick Hall, Umricam, Buncrana, Kinnagoe, Glengad (two halls), Bocan, Culdaff (and many others). They also played further afield, almost always on a Sunday night from 9pm to 2am, without amplification and in poor light. Playing and singing was probably from memory, sustaining the link with traditional practice but hard work in those bigger venues.

John Donovan himself was also in demand, performing solo vocals, and on fiddle, to support local fund-raising or acting as MC. In the 1940s his appearances are reported in Malin Head, Carndonagh, Moville, Bocan, and Faughanvale. Less advertised was his being asked to entertain the clientele in Farren’s Bar at Malin Head on Sunday afternoons, it is surmised, for what he cared to drink, and similarly for the paying guests in The Ballyliffin Hotel and elsewhere after local dances; a situation familiar to many modern musicians. He was also called upon to play and sing at the local ‘Big Houses’, probably for little more than thanks.

1945 saw his big chance. As Nicholas Carolan says in his discographical note, an Irish recording industry had been established around 1935, and in Carndonagh Neal Doherty had a flourishing record section in his store (which still exists). Stephen Butler, the manager, had extensive contacts in the Industry and the company sponsored John Donovan to go to Dublin. On 7-8 June he recorded six songs which were issued on three discs. The disc containing My Lovely Irish Rose and The Rose of Moray was released in December 1945 and the two discs in 1946. Thereafter, it was John Donovan and his Seaside Serenaders and every advert or report regarding either, mentioned the recording contract.

The subsequent advertising campaign promoted a somewhat romanticised and fictional picture of John. This  “Malin Head Fisherman” arrived in Carndonagh for his publicity photographs, carefully turned out as always in suit and tie. A complete makeover ensued.  A fisherman’s sweater (geansaí) was borrowed from a local passer by, and John was handed a mandolin, an instrument he did not play, or in fact could not have played, as the mandolin had no strings.  Listening now to John’s tenor delivery and his repertoire, we can hear the influence of radio and his local place - from the country stars of the 1930s, to Carndonagh’s Fred Kearney.

It’s pretty certain that songs like these and their mode of performance was his standard and that of the singers with the other bands – there must have been as many bands as would serve each dance hall on a Sunday evening. Although the dances offered were mainly traditional ranging from ceili dances, waltzes, old time and modern, quicksteps, foxtrots, polkas, barn-dances, military two-steps, Shoe-the-donkey, highlands, quadrilles and dances from the movies, many of the songs were ‘modern’ - as heard in the cinema and on the wireless, they having become popular during ‘the emergency’. However, the dancers would also have expected popular Irish or Scottish songs. Jim Toland’s article gave a list of likely items: The hills of Donegal, Kevin Barry, Cutting the Corn in Creeslough, The Wild Colonial Boy, Roamin in the Gloamin, Mari s Wedding, Harbour Lights, and Mary of Argyle.

John’s success was notable, advertised widely, not least in the more popular Dublin papers, but, regrettably short-lived, and his ambition, reported in the Irish Press of 26 January 1946, “to become a Music Hall Artist” was never fulfilled. His father’s death, in the same year as he made the records, unsettled him and this was compounded when, in 1946, his mother died. In mid-1948 it became clear that he was ill with tuberculosis of the lungs and spine. He was admitted to Dublin’s specialist Peamount Hospital and, in early 1949, his care was moved to Carndonagh District Hospital; presumably with little hope of recovery.. On 28 April 1949, his body was discovered, in two feet of water in the Carndonagh River which flows past the Hospital. The inquest heard of his condition, an exceedingly painful one, from the local medical Officer, Dr Friel. Not reported were his words, of a few weeks previous, to his brother Charles, but remembered in the family: “I don’t think I’ll stick this for long”. The Inquest recorded “Accidental Death” and the Coroner closed proceedings by saying, "He gave freely of his gifted voice and for that alone he would be remembered". He received generous obituaries in the local Press and from further afield. It seems clear that a local tolerance for alcohol use, coupled with the opportunities afforded by his style of work, and his musical career; his reaction to life’s knocks, and a probable depressive tendency, makes it likely that he developed alcohol dependence, and this, and the lack of self-care that inhered in his job and his vocation, coupled with the arduous nature of both, contributed to the illnesses that led to his death. He is buried, with his parents’ at Lagg Chapel, the traditional burying ground for Inishtrahull people, close by the Five Finger Strand on the shores of Trawbrega Bay, of which he sang in “My Lovely Irish Rose”, a song that is remembered and sung to this day.

The recordings are his chief memorial. It is remembered that they were regularly played on Raidió Éireann’s Sunday lunchtime, “Hospital Requests” programme, and, in 2003, they were re-issued on CD by Inishowen Community Radio as “Songs of an Island Fisherman”. This further 2026 issue is intended to further his reputation, previously far too vague, and to put him and his music in its proper context within the whole tradition of musical practice in Inishowen.