Writer and broadcaster Paul McDermott introduces his new documentary, We’ll Always Be Shouting For You, a portrait of Cork music legends The Frank and Walters, which premieres on RTÉ Gold this St. Patrick’s Day.
In March 2025 singer-songwriter Niall Connolly, supported The Frank and Walters in New York.
After the gig, Niall – who has been recording and gigging in America for almost 20 years – posted a photograph on Instagram.
“Here I am with Graham Finn (Emperor of Icecream) Ken Griffin (Rollerskate Skinny and August Wells) and Paul Linehan (The Frank and Walters),” wrote Niall. “Would love to tell my fourteen-year-old self about this.”
Graham, Ken, Niall and Paul (Pic: Clare McCarthy)
I was conducting interviews for an audio documentary about The Frank and Walters, my eighth music documentary – but how do you distil a band’s 36-year career into 60 minutes?
I knew that Niall’s first ever gig had been to see The Frank and Walters in Cork City Hall on Sunday 21 February 1993. That gig followed a few weeks after their song ‘After All’ had reached the dizzy heights of No. 11 on the UK Singles Chart, a momentous achievement for a young Irish indie band.
The City Hall gig was a triumphant homecoming and closed out chapter one in the band’s long career.
The Franks were back in Cork City Hall last December for another sold out gig. Niall had inadvertently handed me my structure.
At the gig in December I met 16-year-old Sophie O’Sullivan, a Frank and Walters fan excited about seeing her favourite band play in Cork City Hall. Two teenage fans of the same band, the same iconic venue but nearly 33 years apart: music is a such a magical thing.
A tale of two posters: The Frank and Walters at Cork City Hall,
21 February 1993 and 20 December, 2025.
In October 1990 Morty McCarthy, four months off joining another legendary Cork band, The Sultans of Ping, conducted the first ever Frank and Walters interview in his fanzine Sunny Days.
The last question Morty asked Paul, the band’s singer and bass player, was: What are the band’s plans for the future?
“Hopefully,” answered Paul, “to stay together and keep beating away.”
My documentary tells the story of how the Frank and Walters got from the Sunny Days fanzine interview to the first City Hall gig, told by the band themselves and the people who were there and documented it.
It’s also the story of how they stayed together and returned to that same venue decades later.
Image 3 – Caption: Sunny Days, Issue 7 (October 1990), Image from Cork Zine Archive.
In between these two landmark gigs, there have been highs and lows, chart successes and, as the band themselves call them, “the wilderness years”. It’s the story of enduring friendships and the power of a great song – songs that have found a new audience and, judging by the crowd in the City Hall last December, an intergenerational one.
Ashley Keating, the Franks’ drummer, puts their continued appeal “down to luck.”
Paul puts it down to “loving music and loving playing music.”
“Irish” Jack Lyons, author of The Frank and Walters: A Renewed Interest in Reading — and Paul and Ashley’s former postman — co-narrates my documentary. For Jack, the band’s longevity “just goes to show what can happen through music — how miracles can be achieved.”
We’ll Always Be Shouting For You, the story of the Frank and Walters, is broadcast on RTÉ Gold on St. Patrick’s Day at 8pm. Niall Connolly’s new album, his 10th, There’s So Much More to See, is released in May. In June, Grand Parade, The Frank and Walters’ second album, gets its first vinyl release via Last Night From Glasgow. The Franks tour Ireland from October to celebrate the album’s 30th anniversary.