Dublin Days

When Philip first arrived in Ireland in the mid-1950s, he was cared for by his grandparents, Frank and Sarah Lynott. He moved into the house where his mother, Philomena, had been raised. For a few years, Philip had lived in England with her, but she was soon unable to cope with the sustained pressure of being an unmarried white mother to a mixed-race infant. Her parents agreed to raise him, in what was a courageous move, but one that was also open to ridicule and frenzied local gossip. It mattered little, as Philip later described being black and growing up in Dublin as being 'no different to having cauliflower ears.'

Aside from introducing his ethnicity to the locale where he happily grew up, his fevered imagination - like any other youngster of his time - was hugely influenced by the local picture houses. The allure of the adventures presented on silver screens ignited his inner curiosity. It's not inconceivable that the medium of cinema perforated Lynott's incandescent creativity. As a pre-teen, when taken to the pictures by his then-teenage uncles Timmy or Peter, the adventures of Roy Rogers and Trigger, The Lone Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy were the types of fare that appealed to his growing sense of adventure. Dives like the Star Cinema (aka The Rats) located in Crumlin were a frequent destination where he found the sounds of Hollywood making sweet overtures to his pre-teenage ego. He and his friends watched many western flicks at The Star, The Rialto or The Leinster on Saturday afternoons. Many of these picture houses were affectionately referred to as 'flea pits'. It wasn't unheard of for eight or nine-year-olds to be left alone to develop nicotine habits in these places. Philip was fortunate to live in Dublin, as many of the biggest movies of the day premiered there before often taking months to appear across the rest of the country.

It was Saturday afternoons like these that funded his busy mind. When his family found that he might be drifting in his schooling, he dismissed their concerns. Simply, he was allowing himself to develop in a way he felt was a natural shift. As he constantly filled his notebooks with ideas for lyrics, stories and characters, he was acquiring an awareness of his nature. His own voice on paper allowed him to recruit the personality he felt was required to present these ideas when it came time to perform them onstage.

One of the more popular games in Ireland during Philip's youth was known as the pitch and toss, where you would place an object known as a jack and pitch pennies to it. However, it was his interest in music that ignited his imagination and cemented his future - much to the annoyance of his grandparents, but very much so supported by his mother Philomena, who remembers:

Thinking back to his school days, he wanted to be an architect. He was good at drawing, but leaving that aside, I don't know when you realise that your poetry could just maybe fit into the possibility of working around music. I don't really have any recollections of the fledgling poet in Philip because he was in Ireland. But, I was always getting notes from him with hints being dropped: 'Ma, could you send me more money? I love you.'

He was like many others of his time - captivated by the music he channelled from across the airwaves of stations such as Radio Luxembourg. The new generation in Ireland was transfixed by these bizarre sounds coming across the wire. It was a calculated move by the station owners, as they sought to explore and target a burgeoning teenage market with a strong emphasis on what was a relatively new phenomenon: popular music. Whether it was the silky smokin' sensuality of Sam Cooke, the asphyxiated azure tunes of Ray Charles, or the blessed righteousness of Little Richard, they all fed the fury of Philip's escalating thirst for musical enlightenment. Elvis Presley was an early mainstay for a host of the hopefuls, but it was other artists like the late Buddy Holly, who was writing and performing his own material, that kindled and set his heart towards burning his own immortal trail.

Though his teenage relationship with his mother was long-distance, the bond they shared was strong. Being relatively close in age allowed Philomena to relate to a young Philip a bit more easily than her parents could understand him. It is fair to say that other than staying out beyond the appointed curfew time, he didn't get into much trouble as a teenager. In truth, he was probably too afraid of confession on Saturday mornings to push the boundaries.

A first brush with mortality came in 1964 when his Grandad Frank Lynott died unexpectedly from a heart attack. The effect on Philip was immense - the only father figure he'd known was gone. When Philomena flew home for the funeral, she found Philip standing in the corner with tears in his eyes. He was devastated. It also left the family under severe financial pressure, but uncles Timmy and Peter took on the mantle and began to support the family as best they could. Philomena's cheques sent from Manchester also helped alleviate the circumstances as they all tried to come to terms with their grief.

'I first met him when he was about 16', says Tim Booth of the Irish folk group Dr. Strangely Strange. 'his afro hairstyle is something I recall in that it was going up rather than outwards as it did later on. Being a black guy in Dublin, with his accent, it was great! When people met him, they expected a Caribbean accent, which used to really throw people off. It was great, he was a sweetheart.'

A pub named Sinnotts on South King Street in Dublin's city centre housed one of the more eclectic evenings to be had in the old town in the 1960s. Sinnotts was a lovely old Victorian pub where poets Leland Bardwell and Pearse Hutchinson used to run poetry readings in a tiny room above the main bar. This was a session held on a Monday or Wednesday night called Poetry & Music. Booth says, 'It had no PA, was totally acoustic, and the worst part of the evening was manhandling our harmonium up, and then - after numerous pints - down the stairs again. I think we were paid ten shillings each, with a few pints thrown in. It was half a crown admission: cheap at half the price. The poetry was often excellent, and the music was greatly appreciated, mainly for its words.'

Other local performers - such as poet Peter Fallon and percussionist Eamon Carr from the group Tara Telephone - regularly attended a gig run by Mick Colbert in Slattery's Pub on Capel Street. They were very much open-mic sessions, with everyone and anyone invited to contribute as they saw fit. It was at these sessions that Philip - one of the few black men in Dublin - took his first tentative steps in performing material that would later appear as early Thin Lizzy recordings. Though Philip had been known around Dublin as a member of the popular group The Black Eagles, it was at these poetry readings that he took his next step in public performance. Eamon Carr remembers: 'Philip was hip to experimenting and was always consciously anxious to take in whatever stuff he could. It was something I admired in him.'

The rivalry in the Dublin music scene was laden with negative repercussions. It had all the ingredients to leave lifelong scars, such was the bustling competition for gigs. The musicians' greedy appetites to have their music heard frequently led to bands falling out with booking agents, in-house fighting, and general mayhem - all of which played out in melodramatic scenes with less-than-tasteful grace. Bands pinching players from other bands to form new bands was rife and caused serious grievances on the scene. Guitarist Brendan 'Brenny' Bonass can vouch for this:

Well, musicians only played with one band back then and wouldn't dare play with another. The significance for me was that I was known as a group wrecker. I was very ambitious, and more importantly, poaching was a big thing in those days.

By the time Philip was 17, he already had three years of performing with the cult-ish group The Black Eagles under his belt. That group launched his arrival on the Dublin scene. They had their fair share of ups and downs, but in early 1966, they were met with another challenge that would threaten their very survival. Their lead guitarist, Frankie Smith, had reached the end of his tether, forcing the group into the unenviable situation of either replacing him or calling it quits altogether and losing solid bookings. Drummer Brian Downey and Philip met with the group's manager, Joe Smith (Frankie's father), to discuss their options. It had been a reasonably profitable enterprise over the last couple of years, and, keen to continue the endeavour, it was Downey who suggested a replacement in the shape of Alan Sinclair. It wasn't the first time a group member had called it a day, as Downey himself had taken over from Mick Higgins 12 months earlier. Sinclair made his way to Leighlin Road in Crumlin to audition for the group, whereupon he was asked to play Jerry Lordan's 'Apache' (made famous by The Shadows), which he was familiar with, luckily. He recalls: 'I knew it note-perfect. Thereafter, I was introduced to the other members of the band, and the vocalist was Philip Lynott. I was astonished by two things: his colour and his energy. His enthusiasm for music was unbounded.'

The crucial element of The Black Eagles' experience was...