Reconstructions. Steafán Hanvey
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Volunteer Force leader Gusty Spence, Provisional Irish Republican Army veteran Joe Cahill, the last four Chief Constables of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and its successor organisation, the Police Service of Northern Ireland, John Hermon, Hugh Annesley, Ronnie Flanagan and Hugh Orde. Other guests included writers Eugene McCabe, Maurice Leitch and J.P. Donleavy, as well as soldiers, sailors and Travellers.
Bobbie’s photographs have appeared in Paris Vogue, The Village Voice, The Melbourne Age, The Irish Times, The Economist and NPR. He wrote a weekly column for The Belfast Newsletter, Ireland’s oldest newspaper. Still active as a photographer, only recently going ‘electric’ (digital!), his unique collection of photographs is to be found in the Burns Library, Boston College, Massachusetts.
An interesting footnote to this fact is that Fr. McElroy, S.J., a Jesuit priest and, like Bobbie, a Brookeborough man, was one of the original founders of Boston College, Mass., back in 1863; quite a fitting coincidence, given that Bobbie’s body of work would find a home in its archives.
Bobbie currently lives in Downpatrick, Co. Down.
‘When I first stumbled across the photographs of
Bobbie Hanvey, I thought I had found an undiscovered
master — perhaps another sort of Vivian Maier.
Arguably, Hanvey’s photographic work rivals that of great
American photographers such as Walker Evans,
Dorothea Lange, and even the spot news artist, Weegee.’
–NPR
‘Bobbie Hanvey is extraordinarily talented.
He just has an insatiable appetite for photographing.’
–Dr Robert O’Neill, Burns librarian at Boston College.
Steafán Hanvey (The Son)
Steafán was born in Downpatrick, Co. Down, in 1972, five months after Bloody Sunday and one month before Bloody Friday. His exposure to all things musical began in utero as he is the son of musicians. In the 1970s, his household was renowned for its traditional ‘sessions’. Still in short trousers, Steafán was often called upon to regale guests with a rendition of ‘Will You Go, Lassie Go’, ‘The Cobbler’ and ‘Carrickfergus’. On his mother’s side of the family, he has recently discovered a lineage back to the Brontë sisters. His teenage years were spent fronting rock bands, one of which was an earlier incarnation of Relish, which showcased for CBS Records no fewer than three times.
Steafán graduated from the University of Ulster in 1995 with a Bachelor’s degree in Literature and Politics, majoring in American Studies. He spent the third year of his degree studying sound-engineering and American literature as an exchange-student at Western Washington University. Upon his return, he covered the IRA ceasefire in 1994 as a sound engineer for Macmillan Media in Belfast, before pursuing a Master’s in International Politics at the University of Helsinki, where his thesis dealt with a comparative analysis of Ireland and Finland’s neutrality policies. While in Finland, he gave courses in Irish film and conflict resolution at his alma mater, contributed to a government-sponsored Immigrant Musician Workshop at Sibelius Academy, hosted an Irish music radio show, and sang in two Irish/Finnish folk groups. This led in 2000 to a solo EP recording of his original compositions. In short, he was back to his first love.
By special invitation, Steafán performed to a private audience at Dublin’s Focus Theatre, the closing of which was formally presided over by the Irish President, Michael D. Higgins. Steafán has shared the stage with Liam Ó Maonlaí & The Hothouse Flowers in the US, Ireland and Spain, and many other acclaimed Irish artists including Relish, Jack L, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Mary Coughlan, Don Baker, The Walls and John Spillane. His critically-acclaimed debut Steafán Hanvey and The Honeymoon Junkies was released in Finland in 2005, Ireland in 2006 and the US in 2011. National television and radio appearances followed, as did several in-studio sessions with BBC Radio Ulster, NPR and others. Hot Press magazine called his debut ‘a rare delight!’ and opined that it was of an ‘impressive quality’. Gerry Anderson of the BBC remarked that ‘Steafán has earned his place at the table.’
In 2013, he released his second studio album, Nuclear Family, in North America through eOne Distribution, a record that had been mixed by Franz Ferdinand and The Cardigans’ producer, Tore Johansson. Nuclear Family features several guest appearances including Relish and Liam Ó Maonlaí (Hothouse Flowers), and was mastered in London by Mandy Parnell, who has also worked on albums for Feist, John Martyn and Björk.
In addition to producing two albums and a mini-album, Steafán has co-produced, curated, directed and toured a multimedia show in over twenty states of America. This was the platform from which he started introducing his poetry to new ears. Partly funded by The Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and his most ambitious production to date, Look Behind You! A Father and Son’s Impressions of The Troubles Through Photograph and Song was hailed by the New York Irish Voice as ‘truly groundbreaking’. They also said Nuclear Family was ‘brilliant!’ NPR took note and produced a short documentary about Look Behind You!
Steafán has produced three music videos, one of which, Secrets and Lies, was selected for the kinolounge special program of the 22nd Sao Paulo International Short Film Festival. In 2016, he was invited to tour the university circuit in Scandinavia by The Irish Itinerary and The European Federation of Associations and Centres of Irish Studies. Steafán has since begun work on his third studio album and is also working on his first feature-length documentary film. He lives in Helsinki with his girlfriend, Sini, and their two children, Lumi and Luca.
Steafán Hanvey is thoughtful, intelligent and reflective about the culture and family that shaped him, as well as how it has influenced and defined his recent album, Nuclear Family. When I first learned about Steafán and Bobbie Hanvey, I knew their story was something special. One that deserved to be told through the very art that it had inspired.
–NPR
Late Developer
My first lessons in light
were under the cover
of darkness.
From bardic lamp-lit
country roads
to safelight enclosed,
the darkroom in Irish Street
was like a look-out post,
the milk crate –
a bosun-chair,
allowing me,
surgeon’s mate,
a child’s-eye view
of jackdaws
squatting murderously
on derelict chimneypots,
and of-a-world,
none too fair
or familiar.
Like a surgeon-cum-midwife
with suspect-devices,
you took your work
under the knife
in here,
attempting sutures
of out there.
Eager to please,
I’d scan our theatre
through your fag-fug
and mouth a silent
Check!