{"id":453180,"date":"2026-05-17T08:19:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T08:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/453180\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T08:19:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T08:19:08","slug":"i-cant-live-in-dublin-unless-you-have-a-gig-that-pays-a-lot-of-money-or-four-jobs-you-cant-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/453180\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I can\u2019t live in Dublin. Unless you have a gig that pays a lot of money, or four jobs, you can\u2019t\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was born in Holles Street, Dublin<\/a>, and I grew up in Castlebyrne Park, a corporation estate just off Newtown Park Avenue. It\u2019s on the south side of Dublin, but there\u2019s a funny kind of Dublin map where there\u2019s Glenageary, but there\u2019s Sallynoggin, there\u2019s Killiney, but there\u2019s Ballybrack. <\/p>\n

You\u2019re looking at wealth, but you\u2019re not in it. <\/p>\n

I was friends with Glen Hansard<\/a>, Mic Christopher, and all of that crowd, but while they were busking and starting to make a name, I was kind of hiding in my bedroom. Not that I didn\u2019t have ambition, I just didn\u2019t know how to do it. <\/p>\n

A neighbour of mine, a drummer called Robbie Brennan, who had been in the band Stepaside and had played with Phil Lynott<\/a> and several other well-known Irish musicians, got me a gig in the Purty Kitchen in D\u00fan Laoghaire. I showed up with my guitar in a black bag, and I had written out what I\u2019d say, how I\u2019d introduce the songs. My God, it was horrific. I was diabolical. I was out of tune and in a state of panic. That was the level I was at.<\/p>\n

Moving to New York was a very easy decision because my brother Karl was there and his Sin \u00e9 cafe was in full flight. There was such a scene around it: Jeff Buckley was there, Bono and Edge were hanging out, and there I was, hiding in my bedroom. This was the time of the Morrison and Donnelly visas, and I remember Karl calling me, telling me that, just for shits and giggles, he had put my name in for a visa, a Green card. Basically a lottery. My name came up. I sold two guitars to buy a one-way ticket, and three weeks later, I landed in the madness of early \u201890s New York. And I mean madness. <\/p>\n

In my biography, it sounds as if I went to New York to further my career. I didn\u2019t. I went because I was looking at graffiti in Dublin saying would the last person out of Ireland please turn out the light. There was nothing here for me; it was dead. I left in desperation. <\/p>\n

My first night in New York, Karl sent a buddy of his, One-Eye Johnny, to collect me from JFK airport. He shows up in a pickup truck with Louis, his pitbull. Johnny said he had a couple of stops to make along the way into the city. We\u2019re making stops, alright, but they were drug drops. Each time he stopped, he\u2019d say to me: \u201cHold on to Louis, he doesn\u2019t like people, he doesn\u2019t like cops.\u201d <\/p>\n

I remember telling myself to act as if I knew what was going on. Act as if I needed to be there. Just act. Just pretend. I told myself that at some point, the city would start to feel like a comfortable suit. <\/p>\n

\"MarkMark Geary: ‘I landed in the madness of early 1990s New York. And I mean madness.’ Photograph: Patrick Glennon <\/p>\n

I started to write about home, and I began to understand what an expat was. The Pogues had just released If I Should Fall from Grace with God, and it destroyed me in the best possible way. Also, I began to hear compliments for the first time: \u201cOh, my God, you\u2019re from Ireland! I love your accent. I love your shoes. I love you.\u201d The friendliness of questions like, \u201cWow, where are you from?\u201d<\/p>\n

My sense of being Irish now is at a healthy level, but I have sensed changes in the country, and they include cruelty, a grift, and a money-at-all-costs cynicism. <\/p>\n

My kids are at the age I was when I left Dublin for New York, and unless you have a gig that\u2019s paying you a lot of money, or four jobs, you can\u2019t live in the city. I can\u2019t live in Dublin [I live in Kildare now], and I have a career; I work all the time, and I travel for work. The bedsit world of characters has been squeezed out. I go to New York, and it\u2019s the same thing. <\/p>\n

It seems we live in a time where being working class is viewed in certain sections of our society with suspicion. What happened to working your week and expecting that you could afford a home, to feed your family, and educate your children? <\/p>\n

I come from a large family. Dad was a bricklayer, and mum raised all of us. Happy, decent, hard-working, smart and funny, and everyone around us was the same. How have we been dictated to and have a Government policy that seems to favour the hedge fund managers and vulture capitalists? Are we really believing they have our best interests in mind? The cruelty and the grift \u2013 how can that be good for a country? <\/p>\n

They say to pay attention to how a country treats its young and its old … I really feel we have failed in a society that allows such things to happen.<\/p>\n

In conversation with Tony Clayton-Lea. Mark Geary\u2019s EP, Antebellum, is out now. He plays Coughlan\u2019s in Cork, on Thursday, May 21st. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I was born in Holles Street, Dublin, and I grew up in Castlebyrne Park, a corporation estate just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[615,93,61,60,3770,709,1454,4320],"class_list":["post-453180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-dublin","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kildare","tag-magazine","tag-me-myself-and-ireland","tag-new-york"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}