Bay Of Storms

I am writing to remember a local Kintyre songwriter and sometimes singer who sadly passed away in the last week. His name was Eddie Maguire. I got to know Eddie a little through the songwriting, a little through his vast knowledge about the birdies -he was a genuinely expert and respected ornithologist who ran the local sea observatory at Machrihanish - and a little because he was a regular at the local bar, The Kilbrannan, where I go to watch the futba with one of my sons.

He conveniently lived in a flat just across from that bar. The last time I spoke to him he shouted down to me for a wee chat from his first floor window as I passed by. You just never know when the last time is with anybody, do you?

Eddie wrote the kind of songs that reflected his love and knowledge of the local landscape. He didn’t often perform his songs, but he happened to perform at the local Kintyre Songwriters Festival for the first time, during the last festival we had before these lockdowns. I remember him asking me how he had sounded…it’s particularly like that when you don’t play so much….and I replied that he had sounded superb. Because he had. Just lovely gentle songs of the sea and the land.

Here is a beautiful one, Bay Of Storms, that he co-wrote with another local songwriter Davie Robertson. The singer is Ross Kennedy.

Rest in peace Eddie.