Hidden Fears
Photo taken by Pat Galvin
Hidden Fears; From Cork; Active 1985 – 1989; Style; TBC
Vocals & Synth, Pan pipes, Tin Whistle; Neasa De Baroid
Guitar & Backing Vocals; Jody Crowley
Bass; Philip O’Connell
Drums; Jim Casey 1985 – 1987
Drums; Rolly October 1987 – 1989
Neasa De Baroid
Before 1985 Hidden Fears had been called Alice In Wonderland, after Hidden Fears split she would be in a performance duo called Hello.
Finbarr Donnelly Tribute Concert
Hidden Fears reformed in July 1989 for a one off tribute concert at Sir Henry’s for Finbarr Donnelly. Finbarr was the former lead singer with three Cork bands Nun Attax, Five Go Down To The Sea. & Beethoven. Donnelly accidentally drowned while swimming in Hyde Park’s Serpentine Lake, aged 27. Dineen had been out with him that day, and they had planned to meet up at a pub later in the evening. Dineen was there with his girlfriend, along with another of their female friends. He said “It was just an accident.
Hyde Park
It was one of those boiling hot days that you get in London in the summer. We were in Hyde Park and it was a natural thing for Donnelly to take off his clothes down to his jocks and go for a swim. He took off and the lifeguard people came out on a boat and tried to get him out. Mischievous person that Finbarr was, he tried to go under the boat, and he didn’t come up. I think he got caught in the undergrowth underneath the water. We were sitting down having a few cans or whatever it was at the time, with girlfriends, shooting the breeze.”
Dineen later said, “If you went out for the craic with your friends on a Sunday afternoon and one of them didn’t come back, it’s surreal like. Even though we were both 27, you’re still young. It changes your whole life because we went from planning our future, thinking we were going to be in England for a while, to the next minute being on the flight back to Ireland.” The planned second single was never released.