The button above gives a link to culturenorthernireland.org where Anthony Toner discusses his latest album, A Sky For Every Day, with Lee Henry, and plays an exclusive live version of 'Sailortown'. The following is from Anthony Toner's blog -Sailortown is an area of Belfast, once famed as home to a large community gathered close to the dockland area of the city. Many of that community worked in the docks or went to sea, hence its seafaring name. Much of Sailortown was built on reclaimed land.
It has largely disappeared due to redevelopment and neglect on the part of planners but a vigorous campaign to regenerate the area and preserve St Joseph's, the local Roman Catholic church, has been underway for a number of years. In August 2006, that campaign reached 2,000 days of what it considers to be a "lockout" by the diocesan hierarchy. wikipedia:
Late last August I played my first ever gig at the Rotterdam Bar in Belfast, with the Ronnie Greer Band. The stage is right in the window of the bar, so when you set your amp and guitar up, you look straight out on the Clarendon Dock. It struck me at the time that the Rot was a lonely little stump of a tooth in this zone that was earmarked for new housing and development. There was emptiness, chain link fencing and cranes and bulldozers everywhere. ......
and the full article can be read here:
