About

Founded in November 2010 by Steven O’Rourke, 4fortyfour aims to be more than just your average music blog. Think of it less like a blog and more of a home away from home for some of Ireland’s brightest and best music writers and, unlike some music sites, 4fortyfour will focus on quality over quantity.

There are other plans for 4fortyfour in the pipeline but they’ll have to remain top-secret for now. Rest assured though, you’ll be the first to know when they are announced.

Please feel free to comment on any and all posts but don’t say anything on here that you wouldn’t be willing to stand over in ‘real’ life. Offensive, malicious and libelous comments will be deleted so don’t even try. Also, please remember that music is a subjective art, that’s what makes it great, so there is no such thing as right or wrong.

Editor:

Steven O’Rourke
Steven O’Rourke is a freelance journalist who has written for the likes of the Irish Independent and Hot Press. He started writing about music for websites like CLUAS and Drop-D in 2007 before completing a MA Journalism in 2010. His Masters included a thesis on the future of professional music journalism in Ireland, one of the catalysts behind 4fortyfour. In November 2010 Steven was awarded the inaugural Vincent (Vinnie) Doyle Perpetual Trophy for outstanding achievement in the study and practise of journalism from Independent College Dublin. He’s still not sure why he won it, but it was nice to win it all the same.

Contributors:

Aoife Barry
Aoife Barry is a print and radio journalist based in Dublin who has a weekly music show on RTE 2XM, Sweet Oblivion, which goes out every Thursday at 5pm. She writes for the Kildare Nationalist and has contributed to The Irish Independent, The Ticket (The Irish Times), The Evening Echo, State.ie, Thumped.com, HeinekenMusic.ie, The Anti Room, Phantom FM, Cork Campus Radio, and is a regular contributor to Arena on RTE Radio 1.

She has a particular interest in gender and music and completed a thesis on the subject for her Masters in 2006. In her spare time she runs the Sweet Oblivion and Adventures in Veg blogs, DJs, reads, collects old records, travels to her hometown Cork, and cooks.

James Hendicott
James Hendicott is a freelance writer based in Dublin, Ireland. He started writing for publications in Seoul, South Korea, where he worked for Lonely Planet and the government tourism office, before breaking into music. He now works for several publications on both topics, including Alternative Ulster and State Magazine on music, as well as travel community ‘Travbuddy’ and Museyon Guidebooks (who’ve just published ‘Travel & Music’, to which James was a key contributor) on travel. When he’s not writing, he obsesses over the local gig scene and tries to see as much of Europe as possible.

Elaine Kirwan
Elaine Kirwan first became obsessed with music at the tender age of three, when her parents handed her a copy of The Bangles’ Different Light and a Fisher-Price tape recorder. Throughout the years, her obsession grew and her tastes developed, leading her to begin her very own blog where she regularly rants about everything she loves about music. Rarities, B-Sides & Other Stuff features everything from interviews and gig reviews to features on Elaine’s favourite musical acts and albums. Elaine currently lives in Limerick but dreams of someday relocating to a California-based Volkswagen camper van.

Darragh McCausland
Darragh McCausland is a music critic and blogger with a day job in PhD psychology. He sometimes blogs ferociously, and when he doesn’t he feels vaguely guilty. His blog, Asleep on the Compost Heap, gets nominated for awards the odd time.

Darragh writes for AU, State, and himself. He likes the Beatles, Techno, Neutral Milk Hotel type indie, Experimental/Drone Music, and Black Metal – in about that order. He would happily review a hair dryer just functioning. In fact he would happily and uncynically review about anything.

Elizabeth McGeown
Elizabeth McGeown is a singer in two bands based in her hometown of Belfast: the electropop Uber Glitterati and the indie-folk The Lambing Season. She dabbles in music journalism, contributing content to the BBC Radio Ulster Across The Line website and sometimes venturing into the territory of on-air gig reviews, also blogging about her childhood and whatever else takes her fancy on her personal blog An Elizabeth Never Forgets… Some say that she has a Film Studies degree that she never talks about from Queen’s University, Belfast.

Sean Mc Tiernan
Sean Mc Tiernan is 21 and writes for a living now, sort of. He mainly writes for Newswhip. He has written in the past about music and culture for many magazines and websites, like The Awl. He mainly avoids writing about music these days as it makes him far, far too angry. Still though, he likes rap, punk and probably thinks your favourite band are a bit crap. In person he is thoroughly, exhaustively apologetic. You can follow him on Twitter .

Anna Murray
Anna Murray (a.k.a. Contacts Music) is a mutimedia composer, musician and sound engineer based in Dublin with a degree in Music and (almost) a masters in Music and Media Technologies. Having first plunged into the world of music journalism as a teenager, she has since been a regular contributor for many publications, both online and print, including Cluas.com, Drop-D, leCool, The Event Guide Dublin magazine and most recently the Journal of Music.

Her aim has not changed since her first few reviews and interviews: to celebrate talent, bring the deserving unknown into the public ear, and to place all music, no matter what kind, on one equal plane for discussion. She also thinks you should check our her band Charm Offensive.

Peter Nagle
Peter Nagle is a 32 year old teacher of Mathematics in the Special Schools system. He began blogging in 2007 with the Mixtape4Melfi blog which morphed into the Irish Music blog 2UIBestow. Now into its third year 2UIBestow is attracting an average 2,000 readers a week and includes reviews, features, downloads, recommendations and gust bloggers.

Kevin O’Neill
Kevin is a Cork-based Arts student trying to find the balance between History, Politics and a predominant love for music. He began a blogging experiment in early 2010 under the guise of BullBlackNova and has since become a contributor to PopCultureMonster and Motley magazine, as well as taking on the role of Music Editor for the UCC Express. His musical obsession is bordering on overload as he scrambles to stockpile just about everything classed as “indie & alternative” onto one singular iPod… Favourites include the National, Arcade Fire, Radiohead and the White Stripes.

Eoghan O’Sullivan
Eoghan O’Sullivan is a 23-year-old music lover who has just graduated from the University of Limerick with a Masters in Journalism. He presented a show on Cork Campus Radio for 18 months during his Arts course in UCC and is currently working in The Clare People newspaper. He made his first foray into proper music writing with The Point of Everything which began in January 2010. Featuring interviews, podcasts and new music it consumes a lot of his free time. He has an unhealthy obsession with NME and Pitchfork and enjoys listening to new bands more than old ones.

4fortyfour is always looking for contributors. If you are interested in taking part, please email itsdarkwerewearingsunglasses[at]gmail[dot]com

The logo for 4fortyfour, currently in draft format, was designed by the brilliant Liam Murphy.