The Irish Descendants front man Con O'Brien is in the middle of an interesting solo venture this summer singing songs and telling stories about the Newfoundland cod fishery.
By Olivia Bradbury / Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Con O’Brien may be best known as the lead singer of The Irish Descendants and as one of the best baritones in Canada, but he’s also an amateur historian when it comes to the fishery with plenty of real-life experience in the industry to back up that knowledge.
This summer, the Bay Bulls native is rolling that musical ability and fisheries knowledge into a rollicking performance of songs and stories at the Stagehead restaurant in the O’Brien’s Whale and Bird Tours building on the Bay Bulls waterfront.
Billed as A Feed of Fish, the summertime show, which runs until mid-September, comes with a meal and plenty of fishery lore to chew on. There’s a lunch time show and a suppertime performance, with the earlier one catered to people coming back from a tour of whale and puffin spotting around the local islands. The lunch shows typically run from 75 to 90 minutes. The evening shows are more extensive, with a different menu, and go for about two hours.
The main theme of A Feed of Fish is the history of the Newfoundland fishery, especially the moratorium. O’Brien grew up in the fishery. His family and relatives were major players in the processing industry for years, and he readily acknowledges it was a formative part of his upbringing.
“I wouldn’t trade my childhood for anything in the world because it was just a magical thing growing up in outport Newfoundland at that time,” he said. “We were the last generation to see the codfish in the way it had been here for five centuries.”
Fish plants were a major part of not just many Newfoundlanders’ livelihoods, but Newfoundland society in general.
“The fish plant was a place where we gathered, and we came together. It was almost like a church without prayers,” said O’Brien. “We knew each other’s troubles, we knew each other’s triumphs. We talked, we gossiped, we fell in love. Everything happened in the fish plant.”
O’Brien had always expected he would go into the family business. But like many others, he and his loved ones had the rug pulled out from under them when the cod moratorium was announced. He recalls hearing the announcement over the radio on July 2, 1992 while eating breakfast with his father William, better known as Bud, O’Brien. His father then had to go to their plant and tell hundreds of people they were jobless.
“Our livelihoods were taken away from us,” Con said. “It was a very dramatic and traumatic time in our lives.”
More than 40,000 Newfoundlanders left the province to seek work.
O’Brien was able to stay in Newfoundland because of his music career. He does not think he would have become a professional musician if the moratorium had not happened. Being a product of the moratorium led him to the idea of the summertime show. The songs he sings at A Feed of Fish pertain to Newfoundland’s connection with the fishery, and the impact of the moratorium. Con talks about his own son, who works at the event as a host, and how, in one generation, we lost a way of life that we had had for centuries. This often brings audience members to tears. There are typically fewer Newfoundlanders than tourists in the lunch audiences, and O’Brien sees some visitors visibly grasp the impact the loss of the cod fishery had on Newfoundland.
For O’Brien, performing at his cousins’ tour boat establishment helps him keep a connection with the sea and his family’s past. The menu for the Feed of Fish performances is comprised of his own recipes. There are several options, with at least one fish option for lunch and dinner. At lunch guests can order a baked Newfoundland-style cod made from O’Brien’s grandmother’s recipe. At dinner, they can get traditional Newfoundland cod stew, which is perhaps the most popular item. O’Brien noted that many fishermen traditionally ate fish stew for breakfast almost every day, and that the one on the menu is his own Bay Bulls variation.
