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My name is Eamonn. I was born in Dublin, grew up in Limerick, went back to Dublin to go to college and then emigrated to Holland in the late 1980s. When I was about 12 I heard "In For The Kill" by Budgie and was never the same again. Rock music became my obsession. Reading Mark J.Prendergast's book Irish Rock in 1988 made me realise how much of the music I remembered from radio in the late 1970s was Irish and I began to try to find those singles. Losing a box of tapes that I'd recorded from the radio during a house move, including Fanning Show sessions and unreleased material from pirate station broadcasts, was a traumatic experience as they were irreplaceable! Unless, I realized, someone else out there had taped the same material . . . And so bringing these impulses together, I started this website to document as many bands as I could, focussing initially on the years I was most familair with (1978-88 approx) as the Irish Punk & New Wave Discography, but now expanded to include earlier bands. This is why the website is split into two parts. One of these days we'll merge them together.
No the other reason I started the site was to help me get my hands on as many records as possible. As a chronic record collector, I need people to send me records (preferably for free) on a regular basis. As I seem to have been trying to find some of these records for decades, it's also been good for my stress levels.
No.
After a long and difficult birth, this site began life in 2004 as an angelfire hosted webpage. Besides the space limitations of such an account, the main drawback was the convoluted address (URL) which was impossible for people to remember. Within a couple of years the site was spread over three such angelfire accounts. I juggled with this logistical nightmare for over three years before finally registering the domain name irishrock.org in 2007 and moving to the current advert-free host. My thanks to the Powers That Be (i.e. Pete!) for making this possible.
Since you last what..?! Printing of this material is of course streng verboten. One of these days the website will include an updates section but it's low priority. I have limited free time which I prefer to use adding or expanding/correcting entries rather than maintaining update lists.
I get many requests like this and it's great that so many people are
interested in hearing the music. I cannot satisfy every request for various reasons
but I do my best, especially when it comes to officially released records
that have never been issued on CD nor are ever likely to be.
However, unless I know you, or unless you've sent me something in the past, I will
expect something in exchange, and I've a strict policy of sending out CDRs
after I've received that item from you. I've been burned too many times in
the past. So you must send me something first.
Secondly, I am very very slow at doing this. It can take me 2 months to make a CDR.
A book certainly appeals to my vanity and is a distinct possibility but I have no immediate plans to do one. The database is far too incomplete. By helping me now, you may one day see your name in print in the thank-you list of a real-world actual printed-on-paper book. What more incentive do you need? Meanwhile, if you don't already own a copy of It Makes You Want To Spit!, then I recommend it highly -- see the bibliography for details.
I hate mp3s unless they're done at a generous bit rate but then the bigger the mp3 the longer it takes to download -- so what's the point? -- so no, no mp3s.
Please note that this is a discography, not a sale list. I do have spare copies of some of the records on this site but I'd prefer to trade for things I am looking for. See elsewhere for more details.