Later Mr Lennon played a tape-recording of a new record by The Beatles entitled ‘Revolution’, which was about to be released.

Mr Lennon and his group were very much impressed by the singing of ‘Danny Boy’ and ‘The Rose of Tralee’ by Mrs Larry McGovern, Newport. Miss Peggy Jennings, hotel receptionist, and a native of Hollymount, gave an exhibition of Irish dancing and items were also contributed by the hotel staff. On the Sunday night, he participated in a concert in the hotel, organised by manager, Bob Lalor, and compered by Tony Chambers.Ĭurry’s report states: “Taking part were the Molloy brothers, Mulranny (accordion) Dominick Grady, Newport, who gave a selection on the bagpipes. Lennon wasn’t so reticent with his hosts and the guests of the hotel, however. Little did I expect that I would be the only pressman on the spot to cover the surprise arrival of the Beatle Millionaire.” Of course, even in the days before the world wide web, the bush telegraph was very efficient in the west, and a posse of press people arrived by the following day to check if they could get an on-the-record confirmation on whether Lennon’s marriage to Cynthia had ended but the Beatle declined to comment.

Indeed, this was truly a serendipitous scoop as Martin confirmed at the end of his article: “My visit to the hotel on Saturday evening was to cover the arrival of the Minister for External Affairs. “Beatle Was ‘Enchanted’ With Mulranny Visit”, stated the headline by then cub reporter, the late Martin Curry. IT was on this second occasion that the Beatle made front-page headlines in The Mayo News after he, and a party of seven, landed on the lawns of the Great Southern Hotel, Mulranny, (these days the Mulranny Park Hotel) as guests for the weekend. Apparently the weather turned nasty on one of these occasions and they were forced to get a helicopter back to Westport Quay where one droll observer, of Ono’s attire quipped: “Her shkirt was so short, you could see Louisburgh between her legs.” He recalled that he was very courteous and business-like and the only tension occurred when – over a cup of tea in his house – his dog, Sandy, mistook Lennon’s long hairy Afghan coat for some exotic intruder and began to growl at it.Īccording to local lore Lennon visited the island twice and just spent one night there with Ono in the gypsy caravan. Interestingly, during interviews over the subsequent decades, Quinn confirmed that he hadn’t a clue who Lennon was when he first approached him. Quinn was also hired to build a raft to transport a multi-coloured gypsy caravan. He had sailed out to the island with local boat-builder, Paddy Quinn, of Inishscuttle. When Lennon made his maiden voyage to the island the previous year, he was still married to his first wife, Cynthia, and had planned to build a getaway home there for themselves and their young son, Julian. The Liverpool lad, who would later discover his Irish heritage, became the owner of an island for the princely sum of £1,700 pounds sterling. So Lennon despatched The Beatles’ ‘Mr FixIt’, Alistair Taylor, who easily outbid the group of local farmers interested in purchasing the island for pasture. But times were changing and the tidal harbour was no longer a busy port and so strapped for cash were the board that the 19-acre island was put up for sale by public auction. Part of the maze of inner islands in the spectacular County Mayo bay, Dorinish was owned by Westport Harbour Board and had been used as a piloting station for cargo ships navigating into the harbour. It was a year after John Lennon had seen an advertisement in a British newspaper for an island off Ireland for sale. The fact that Ms Ono was coiffed with a beehive bun didn’t help the sense of confusion and, naturally, some of the feathered friends swooped on her assuming she was bearing new soft material for their nests. Like the majority of Clew Bay’s tiny inner islands, it was uninhabited by humans and happened to be the nesting season for its resident gulls and gannets: a rather stressful time from an avian perspective. IT is no wonder the arrival on Dorinish Island of Beatle John Lennon and his new girlfriend, Yoko Ono, in June 1968, ruffled a few feathers. It’s 50 years since Beatle John Lennon made front page headlines in The Mayo News BED-IN FOR PEACE John and Yoko on their honeymoon in Amsterdam where they held a ‘bed-in’.

Dorinish island clew bay ireland