Anywhere But Home is a grooving, moving, tuneful tribute to Dublin by Eamonn Flynn, a proud Northsider, who swapped the docks for the Dock of the Bay some years ago. He plays piano and sings in various genres and with a wide range of musical combinations. He is currently heading out for a West Coast tour with Maria Muldaur and her Bluesiana band. Flynn first came to my attention some years ago when he joined the Black Brothers band bringing new dimensions to their shows. He was a key contributor to their brilliant 2020 album Glackanacker.

Like many people, Flynn was “working from home” these past two years. His usual offices in clubs, pubs and halls were closed and he had to get by on his Spotify earnings! However, he was very productive with regular online performances and two “studio” albums, this one and an excellent instrumental album The King of the Cats. While the album’s tone is nostalgic it surges musically past any cheap sentimentality. Flynn’s experience shows in the way he blends the building blocks of notes and lyrics into a set of songs that will quickly take up residence in your head. 

Flynn builds on a long tradition of catchy songs inspired by Dublin: Molly Malone, Dublin Saunter, The Foggy Dew, The Rare Old Times, and Remember that Summer in Dublin, just to mention a few. Non-Dubliners may be unaware of the (mostly) friendly cross-river rivalries that animate Dublin’s culture. The Southside, for example, gets a lot of airtime in the songs: Grafton Street, St Stephen’s Green, the Coombe, Raglan Road and the Grand Canal. Flynn’s album brings some limelight to the neglected Northside with songs about the Bull Wall, the Docks and St Anne’s Park. He follows the tracks laid down by the late singer-songwriter Mick Fitzgerald, a Cabra man, who also showcased the Northside in his songs.

St Anne’s recalls the childhood joys of playing in a large park in Raheny, a Guinness family property with follies and sculptures that became a public park in the 1930s. The park is home to a modern sculpture carved into an old tree by Tommy Craggs which is featured in a short film Building the Ark by Pat Boran, himself a Northside resident. Boran has created a whole new accessible genre of short poetry films mostly shot on the Northside.

Ringsend Balcony Bingo is a crafty, clever tribute to one of Dublin’s most creative pandemic lockdown responses. In Italy they sang opera from their apartment balconies but in working class Ringsend, community bingo was the favored activity. In other parts of Dublin, local musicians gave impromptu concerts in front of their house while the neighbors came out to watch and listen.

Sack ‘Em Ups is rhythmic opener on the spooky subject of grave-robbers in the 19th Century Dublin.  Bull Wall is an R&B tribute to a Dublin Bay landmark sung with bluesy style. Baile Atha Cliath is a dynamic song with a samba beat and classic potential. The indelible “Strolling” chorus dissolves into a crescendo of pipes and whistles.

Penalty Shootout in the Dockers echoes Christy Moore’s Joxer Goes to Stuttgart in reminiscing about the days when Ireland had international soccer success thanks to Jack Charlton’s management. Flynn wrote this song after Charlton’s death in 2019. It hits all the right notes: Put ‘Em Under Pressure and Oh, Ah, Paul McGrath. He has a funny line, “When Republic had four syllables,” as he squeezes an extra syllable into “television.”

He makes only two trips out of Dublin. An tOilean Tiar honors the people and culture of the Great Blasket Island off the Kerry coast. The now deserted island is “moving through the mist like a dream,” where “We’d a name for everything that we had.” The Meeting of the Waters is from Thomas Moore, a Dubliner, who, as Flynn notes, was a bit of a rock star in his day (1779-1852) and wrote many classic songs. This is Flynn solo giving this old standard a fresh sonic coat. The song is dedicated to his mother who was a Wicklow woman.

Every good album has a song that works in mysterious ways. Sorry for your Trouble is that song, for me. Flynn, solo again, weaves a lovely litany from the phrases and clichés employed to comfort others after a death. It’s a ritual where, as Flynn says, “We all improvise from a well-rehearsed script.” It’s one of the songs that is smoothly bi-lingual with lines in Irish.

I doubt that Flynn was ever in the same room as his Who’s Who of musical collaborators but you would never know it from the seamless, rounded sound with stand-out contributions from Mike McGoldrick and Todd Denman on pipes and whistles; Athena Tergis on violins; James Blennerhasset on bass; Mick McAuley on accordion; Brian Collier and James Macintosh on percussion; and, permeating the entire musical enterprise, John Doyle (another Northsider) on guitar, vocals and mixing. 

I’ve had my own Dublin memories activated by the centenary events marking the first public housing development in the Free State in the Tenters on the edge of the Liberties where I grew up. And this bright and beautiful album is good company for reminiscing. It is a fine addition to his excellent collection of recent albums: The Irish Channel (2017) and Black Coddle (2019.) Seek them out and buy them from Flynn, an independent artist who, like many others, could use the support. All are available on Bandcamp in various formats, https://eamonnflynn.bandcamp.com/album/anywhere-but-home

I suggest that you listen to it in the order laid down. Don’t second-guess the creative choices by hitting that shuffle button. And listen a few times before settling on favorites or playing just one song repeatedly. So, there you have it. Flynn takes us down the less rocky road to Dublin’s fair city where you can still have a rare old time on a sunny summer morning as long as you’re alive, alive-o.