By NOEL MURPHY
It’s the end of an era for a Geelong musical icon as Irish Murphy’s pulls the shutters on its pub operations and looks to life in a new restaurant guise.
For the better part of 15 years, the Geelong West pub regularly hosted Irish sessions that drew musicians from Geelong, Melbourne and across Victoria.
The sessions, built on a format traditional to Irish pubs, saw reels, jigs, hornpipes and more belted out in rollicking fashion on banjos, fiddles, squeezeboxes, whistles, guitars and bodhrans.
Over the years, the sessions morphed to embrace bluegrass, jazz, rock and other musical styles but the format remained acoustic, a true unplugged style that kept the music raw and honest without effects or electronics.
When new owners stopped the sessions, opting for a more pop format at the pub, the sessions were happily mixing Bob Marley and banjos, Daddy Cool and accordions, and AC/DC with ukuleles. Rolling Stones tunes were delivered on mandolins along with Tennessee waltzes, Russian troikas and Celtic airs. Musical multiculturalism.
While many punters of the era hoped the sessions might return, they didn’t and they’re not about to now the pub’s closing.
Owner Barb Smoorenburg says her new eatery will aim at the after 8pm dining market with finger and fork food available into the wee hours.
But the days of Celtic strains won’t go completely forgotten, especially for some who found the sessions a veritable visit to Ireland that they might never otherwise realise.
Like the family of Geelong artist Ken Love who sketched the fiddlers, pipers, flautists and other players one smoky Sunday night 10 years ago as they scratched, rattled and plucked their way through a beautifully warm and boozy, foot-stomping session.
He leaned back in his wheelchair and whispered to his wife that he’d finally made it to the Erin he’d wanted to visit his entire life.
He exited this world the following week but not before presenting the musicians his sketch, signed with exquisite black Irish humour from “the almost late Ken Love”.
