The Mikeen McCarthy Interviews
Mikeen McCarthy spoke freely about his life and experiences with his good friends Jim Carroll & Pat MacKenzie over a thirty year period. Many of these conversations were recorded and his reminisces are an invaluable source of local folklore and history. In most cases we have re-digitised the recordings from the original reel to reels and edited to enhance and balance sound. The original recording conditions were not ideal but I feel the background noises enhance rather than take from the recordings. Some of the interviews were conducted in a caravan under a fly-over in central London. In total there are over a hundred hours of interviews and all will be available here. For each recording there is an index and transcription. The interviews are honest and personal, not scripted and spoken in the language of the people, place and time. Below are the first batch, Enjoy.
In an attempt to identify a local musician on an old reel to reel recording, via a song that the suspected musician on the recording had in his repertoire, I became acquainted with Jim Carroll via a very circuitous route. This chance encounter has become one of the most fortuitous moments of my life so far. It has produced a treasure trove of material for the Binneas Collection, and a priceless store of unrecorded and undocumented local history. The foresight of Jim Carroll and his Pat Mackenzie, along with their decades of selfless commitment to recording the oral folklore of the Irish travellers in London can not be praised highly enough. This section of the Binneas website is dedicated to the recordings, stories, and folklore of Mikeen McCarthy and his extended family, are my way of extending my gratitude and the recognition they so well deserve. Peter Mullarkey (The Binneas Collection).
