At home with... Niamh Farrell, Ham Sandwich
Arguably the most talked about Dublin band of the moment, Ham Sandwich, with their imminent UK tour , look well poised to take it to the next level.
Colm O Hare, 20 May 2008
Though most of the band hails from Kells, County Meath, singer Niamh Farrell is currently domiciled in Tallaght, Dublin, where she occupies the attic conversion of her boyfriend’s parents’ house. “I love it here, it’s like having our own little apartment within the house,” she says. “We have our own posters and photographs on the wall, a couple of amps and plenty of music and DVDs to keep us occupied. If we’re not gigging or rehearsing, we’ll be hanging around the house, especially coming into the good weather.”
Nicely positioned on the outer fringes of the city, she says she takes full advantage of the semi-rural location. “We’re just in front of the Dublin mountains and last week we walked all the way up to the Hellfire club, which took us two and a half hours,” she says. “I also love taking the bus into town and getting the DART out to places like Bray and Howth.”
Originally from Rialto in the south inner city, Niamh spent her teenage years in Scotland, just outside Glasgow, her mum having moved when she was much younger. “I was there for about 12 years altogether, but I kind of didn’t start going out until the last two years. I went to a lot of gigs, mainly at King Tuts and Barrowlands where I saw bands like Ash and Muse. I did a year at a performing arts college and I was in a band for a while.”
Having kept in close touch with friends and family back home, she decided to move back to Dublin permanently a few years back, hooking up with her future bandmates soon after returning. “I worked at the St Patrick’s Day festival in a van at the end of Grafton Street handing out leaflets. John the bass player worked there too and we’d a lot of time to talk about stuff. I found out he used to be in a band. One day Podge [McNamee] came down to the van. He was so drunk he had a leprechaun hat on and was hanging out the window shouting at everybody. I thought ‘I really don’t like this guy’ but eventually I warmed to him and we started talking about getting a band together.”
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