A SPECIAL night of celebration remembering the multitalented broadcaster and actor Alf McCarthy who lived in Rosscarbery will take place at the Everyman Theatre on Sunday, July 7th.
Alf had lived in Rosscarbery for the past four years, and had become embedded in the local community. He was known to generations in Co Cork, known as everything from the ‘voice of Cork’ to the ‘Gaybo of Cork’, having been a prominent figure locally and nationally on RTÉ. He died in April after a brief illness.
Alf had retired from RTÉ in 2015, and since then had become part of the Everyman’s Sunday Songbook team, who bring the music and magic of stars of the past back to life and stage.
‘Alf loved West Cork and had moved to Rosscarbery during Covid. He loved it there, and had even joined the local men’s shed,’ said Linda.
His death, just 10 days after he and his colleagues celebrated the story and songs of Burt Bacharach on that same Everyman stage, stunned all who knew and loved him.
‘We were absolutely shocked,’ said Linda Kenny, a friend of Alf and a co-star in the Sunday Songbook, told The Southern Star.
‘When he came into to theatre, the week of the show, he said he was feeling weak and not well but nobody thought it was going to be last time we saw him.’
Linda, who is based in Crossbarry, first met Alf as a schoolgirl, when Alf interviewed her for Cork Local Radio.
‘Even though I was in school, he treated me like his equal. He was passionately interested in people and treated everyone with respect.
‘On stage, he was a multitalented actor. One time he could be a cockney in the Vera Lynn show; when we did a Sinatra show he did the story through the persona of a bartender from Hoboken, in New Jersey. Other times he was Alf, with his cheeky, honey-coated voice.’
On Sunday 7th July, The Everyman Sunday Songbook team, joined by some very special guests, will share memories and celebrate their dear friend, Alf, with an epic hit parade of songs from over a dozen shows they shared together.
‘We have such a great bond like a family, and Alf was part of that – John McGrathy, Jimmy Hynes, Alan Carney, Brian Hyland, Damian Smith, director Cathal McCabe, stage manager Yvonne Cronin and all the team on and offstage at the Everyman, which is our spiritual home.’
Linda and fellow Songbook stalwarts, Damian Smith, Alan Carney, and the wonderful Songbook Band, will be joined on Sunday July 7th at 7.30pm by Cork showband legend Art Supple, Ryan Morgan, Conor ‘The Loungeman’ O’Shea, Frank Sinatra aficionado Jim O’Mahony, and Lyric FM’s Evelyn Grant for a Sunday Songbook like no other. It will be a hit parade of the songs from more than a dozen shows they shared together with their late great friend.
‘It’s going to be one to sing your hearts out,’ said Linda.
Tickets are €28 from www.everymancork.com.
