Cathal Coughlan
Microdisney/Fatima Mansions firebrand BORN 1960
IN THE hours before Cathal Coughlan’s passing was reported on May 24, his new release EP Of Co-Aklan was announced. It was a gesture not unlike the timing of David Bowie’s Blackstar, where the primacy of the artistic statement was all, even when death was near.
Coughlan had long specialised in wrong-footing moves. Born in Glounthaune outside Cork, he formed first group Microdisney in 1980. “I didn’t really have any formed ideas,” co-leader Sean O’Hagan told MOJO. “Cathal had lots.” Despite their classic melodicism, lyrical edge and Coughlan’s rich, Scott Walker-indebted delivery, Microdisney failed to cross over beyond 1987 single Town To Town’s Number 55 placing and split in 1988 after five LPs.
Coughlan followed up with the furious, genre-grinding output of The Fatima Mansions, who memorably supported U2 in 1992: on-stage in Milan, Coughlan caused a stir by appearing to insert a Virgin Mary-shaped shampoo bottle into his anus. Again, despite or because of the earth-scorching likes of Blues For Ceausescu, crossover was denied them and they split in 1995, not before a deranged cover of Bryan Adams’ Everything I Do (I Do It For You) was smuggled into the Top 10 as a charity double A-side with the Manic Street Preachers. Coughlan said he had no time for “house trained” music: another notable vehicle was the sublimely puerile Bubonique, his project with comedian Sean Hughes.
As contractual difficulties slowed his output, he worked for BBC Online, and would release seven solo albums. A greater Irish songwriter than other more lauded contemporaries, his last solo LP was 2021’s Song Of Co-Aklan, a typically incisive articulation of modern confusions and conflicts. He also reunited with Microdisney in 2018 and 2019, and collaborated again with O’Hagan. “I never had a brother,” wrote O’Hagan, “but Cathal was as close to one as I had.”