Here is my opinion of the story......

The first band I ever saw live was Paul Hegarty's band in 1984

Dual Alliance were

Paul on Guitar

Ian McKeon - Drums

James Carr - Vocals

Murry Doyle - Bass

Paul Brady - Lead Guitar

In the summer of 86 Christian Beausang, Fergus Kealy and I had a band, (in our minds). I used to work in the Racecourse Inn, Baldoyle where Brian Hegarty (no relation to Paul) told me about a friend of his who played drums. I cycled over the next Saturday and met Mark Tynan.

We needed a Bass player and after being told a meandering story for 25 minutes by a lad in my class, the punchline being, "It just goes to show, 7 out of 10 people prefer corn flakes", completely un-funny, we definitly needed this warped sense of humour, and Conal O'Neill was the only person we knew with a Bass.

Crimson Widow were:

Fergus Kealy - Vocals, later replaced by my sister Bairbre

Christian Beausang - Rhythm Guitar

Mark Tynan - Drums

Conal O'Neill - Bass

Me - Lead Guitar

We played one talent contest in Kevin St. college and broke up for the sake of humanity.....

Things got quite for me bandwise, I bought a Tascam 4 track and retreated into playing with myself (oh er.), meanwhile, Mark Tynan got a guitar player named Sean O'Brian and formed a band with Conal O'Neill on Bass and Ian Mc Keon on vocals. This was About Time. I think they played some competitions but they never wrote anything. When looking throught the music papers Conal saw that About Time had put an add in for a Bass Player, so he realized he was out.....Nice guy's About Time.

Conal has always been a 'musical slut' he was always playing with other musicians, namely Stuart Hoffman, Robert McKenna, John Kenny and others....They borrowed a 4 track and with the help of a young aspiring drummer across the road, recorded the first Eddie Charlton demo.

Conal O'Neill - Bass

Stuart Hoffman - Guitar

Robert Foley - Vocals

John McCarthy - Drums

They had a very original style, the sound may have been compared to Indie, but I know these guys were big Zep fans, and that would have changed. This lineup did nothing more.The tape went to Dave Fanning and a later incarnation did a session on Dave's show. There was concern at the time, as the producer thought they were a differant band to the demo.

My brother Diarmuid, had his own band