Mama’s Broke, featuring Feargus De Brún and Taylor the Dog

Only a few weeks ago I received a text from the wee legend that is Brían Mac Gloinn, stating that there was a musical duo residing in his house in Stoneybatter called Mama’s Broke, that they were only with staying with him for a few days, that were absolutely great, sound of mind and that I had to capture them on film. Brían also lives with another legend Feargus De Brún who’s a woodcarver from Cork, and his very old and very small dog called Taylor.

Houses in Stoneybatter aren’t that large. You could say, they’re very cosy. Woodcarver Feargus still manages to create huge quantities of hand made furniture for paying clients by using the quiet street outside to do much of his heavy work. When I called to the house Feargus was outside preparing the legs for his third armchair, in a set of eight chairs he had been commissioned to make at the time. Taylor the dog, kept watch close by. Lisa and Amy of Mama’s Broke sat on the stoop of the house both nursing mugs of excellent coffee, no doubt procured by the maestro of tunes and coffee himself, Brían.

It was scene of total harmony. One you couldn’t make up or stage. Like pages of a storybook manifest in to real life for a perfect glimpse of time. Having once suffered a near death accident, which is a story I’m still reading over and over in my head before I can share it properly with you, I knew that the scene before me was one of those memories which people take with them, hold in their minds, until the last minute, last second of life. These are the only kind of scenes I’m interested in capturing, and I instantly knew how lucky I was to be there.

So in the words of a Direct Cinema hero of mine Werner Herzog, during his mokumentary Incident at Loch Ness, in which Werner, wielding a 16mm camera, was plunged in to the icy Loch Ness after his small vessel was capsized by the elusive monster “There was nothing left to do…

…but shoooot”.