Harp and Lion Cahir

Cahir O’Doherty [ guitar, bass guitar, singer/songwriter]

Cahir (rhymes with “fire”) is a Dubliner who has been playing and singing since his late teens. He knew he could have  a future as a guitarist when after  a couple of years he sat down with a couple of his favorite Loudon Wainright albums to find that what he thought was really tough guitar parts falling into place in what seemed a miraculous fashion. In just a couple of nights he found that he could play every track from Wainright’s first two albums, even using the same chords and riffs! Eureka! When he worked out Dylan’s Freewheeling over the next couple of nights he thought to himself “How about that for a game of Guitar Heroes?”.  Delighted with himself would be putting it mildly.

So when he found himself down and out in Paris in September, after a chance meeting with an Irish girl who introduced him to an English guitar player called Nick in Le Mazet, HQ of the Left Bank busking scene, he began busking in the Metro.  Life suddenly seemed to be quite sweet. A few weeks later he met Jim Bermingham, also a Dubliner, who became his partner in crime and shared the hotel bill. Over the next few years they would play together in London, Paris and Dublin, not really caring about what would come next, but being free to do pretty much as they wished, bar the odd run-in with the agents of local law enforcement.

Though they eventually lost track of each other, they recently made contact in London, where Jim now lives, still a musician. Now they are part of The Potentials, a loose grouping of musicians who play with each other as and where need and availability dictate. They play a mixture of folk from Ireland, Scotland, the US, Canada and Australia, and maybe some blues, bluegrass or country thrown in, or even mixed up with each other.

Cahir plays in a rhythmic hard picking style, bringing out bass notes in a way which, he has often been told, makes him sound like two or even three musicians. Handy when you’re doing one night stands. In fact, it was exactly the need to make a guy and a guitar sound more interesting that led to him developing this style of playing. He will also play picking style on love songs such as Black is the Colour and Raglan Road, introducing extra chords and variations that lend a modal-Latin flavour to these most poignant of love songs. He has also written many original songs in a variety of styles, but all with a keen melodic flavour which combined with his distinctive Irish voice and guitar style aim to express the mysteries of existence and the human condition, and the part played in it by love and the search for meaning and soul.

Cahir has been traveling on and off since his twenties, and has played live in Irish and other bars and restaurants in France, Ireland, Holland, Spain, Austria and Italy. Though he would love it if he could just play Irish songs live he realises that most punters are not such hardcore Irish fans, so he usually mixes Irish, Greatest Hits, Blues and Country depending on the reaction of the crowd on the night.

He lived for many years in Munich, and played many times in the local Irish Bars, such as the Shamrock, the Dubliner and Leon’s. He has also played regularly in Switzerland in Winterthur and in Innsbruck in Austria. Dachau and Nuremburg are also regular spots.

He has been back in Ireland for a few years now but since the economic crash he is feeling restless and since meeting up with Jim thinks that there is still dust to kick up on that Yellow Brick Road.


Cahir O'Docherty