TROUBADOUR Damien Dempsey is often urged to write a book chronicling his journey from teenage amateur boxer to the revered folk singer-songwriter who has been dubbed the voice of Dublin's working class.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Reflecting on his upbringing in Donaghmede in a house that hosted regular post-pub music sessions, to overcoming drug use, achieving second place in a songwriting competition before being taken under the wing of Sinead O'Connor, he concedes he has more than enough material to begin a tome.
But for now Dempsey is too busy - and modestly believes his efforts are better spent - continuing to advocate and make social commentary on his much-loved and recession-ravaged Ireland, where life has irreversibly changed in the wake of the Celtic Tiger.
"It's been very organic," he tells Weekender down the phone from the country's capital, over a nightcap.
"I've always loved ballads and folk songs from centuries ago that told the story of the time.
"I think the true history of a place is written in song, it's not written in the history books, which are written by people who have an agenda.
"If you want to know what was going on, you listen to the folk songs and the ballads."
Inspired by Bob Marley, teenage Dempsey wrote his first song while holed up with his guitar in his bedroom, about the smog produced from coal fires that hung over the city in winter and damaged health.
"I was always that way inclined, always writing socially instead of other writers who write love songs," he says.
"I want to paint a picture of what is going on now for people in the future."
Dempsey's song about homelessness called Cardboard City would earn him second place in a song contest before he graduated from rock band U2's former school, Mount Temple Comprehensive.
He recorded his first EP The Contender in 1995, but it was followed by a period of uncertainty and unemployment.
Dempsey's distinctive 1997 single Dublin Town would be his breakthrough and was hailed an underground anthem for disaffected youth.
It featured on his first album, the 2000 They Don't Teach This Shit In School, to be followed by five studio albums as well as recent greatest hits compilation It's All Good.
"Music to me is like a very spiritual thing. I close my eyes when I sing and play and it just lifts me. It's kind of like it's not of this world, its other worldly."
Sinead O'Connor was one of the first to crown Dempsey as one to watch and has said he represented a voice that was not usually allowed to be heard in their country.
"My accent is kind of stigmatised in Ireland," he explains. "A working-class Dublin accent would be seen by a lot of Irish people as criminals, junkies, prostitution, drugs, you're low down if you've got an accent like this.
"People are quick to judge so you wouldn't hear many of these voices as accents on the TV or radio.
"I want to make people with my accent proud - and I tell people to be proud of who they are and where they're from, don't be ashamed of who you are or your suburb."
Dempsey is equally as enthusiastic about the kinds of conversations that must be held.
"People don't like me talking about or bringing up the past, they think I'm a rebel or something," he says.
"But a lot of damage has come from our colonial past and the abuses of the Catholic Church that went on. All we saw was our country being robbed, so when leaders get in they're doing the same thing now.
"We're passive and we let our own government do so much to us and don't get out and fight.
"We just go 'Ah, I can't change it, just let them do what they're going to do' so we need to get some pride back in our culture and history."
Dempsey's gusto has earned him titles including legend in the making, the greatest Irish singer of his generation, the Irish Bob Marley and from Australia's own Dan Sultan, the greatest thing to come out of Ireland since Guinness.
He hopes to use the trip to work with Dan Sultan on a song about the 1966 Wave Hill Walk-Off, when 200 Gurindji stockmen, house servants and their families led a seven-year walk off and strike from Wave Hill cattle station for the return of their land.
After facing writers block working on his 2012 album Almighty Love, Dempsey says he is feeling confident about the songs he has written for his next album, which he expects to unleash next year.
"I genuinely think the great stuff comes from everywhere else and comes through me, which is why I don't have a big ego," he says.
Damien Dempsey performs at The Gum Ball Music Festival, which will be held in Belford on April 11 and 12.
