A new run of Healing Sounds with Co Tyrone singer-songwriter Malachi Cush starts tonight on BBC Radio Ulster — and the opener is a full hour for the 25th anniversary of 9/11.
The third series is twelve parts. Malachi sits with people from all walks of life on grief, trauma, illness, loss, resilience and hope, and the songs that helped carry them. Listeners can catch it on Radio Ulster and on BBC Sounds.
Catch up on earlier Healing Sounds coverage on LoveBelfast — including when the show returned for a new season on RTÉ — plus Malachi’s other turns as St Vincent de Paul Northern Region ambassador, his Christmas single with the Omagh Community Youth Choir, and St Patrick’s performances in New York.
9/11 special with Bill Cosgrove
17 September at 9.00pm:: retired NYPD Lieutenant Bill Cosgrove tells Malachi how he went into the World Trade Centre that day to help save lives. He believes he is here because he helped carry NYFD Chaplain Fr Mychal Judge — one of the first official fatalities of the attacks — out to a safer place.
Bill talks about how 9/11 changed his life, and how 25 years on the hurt is still there. Anniversaries still bring tears; for whatever reason, he has never visited the Manhattan memorial.
What Malachi says about the series
“Healing Sounds is a deeply personal series of conversations in which my guests share extraordinary life experiences and reveal the music that has helped them through some of their darkest and most defining moments,” Malachi said.
He called the guest line-up remarkable for how openly people shared why their four song choices matter. Listeners, he said, will be shocked, entertained, saddened, uplifted and surprised — and he wants an overarching sense of hope from how resilient those guests have been.
Who else is on the run
Also joining Malachi across the series: singer Andrea Begley, Colin Bell (Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust), singer Janet Devlin, Fr John Joe Duffy from Creeslough, Tyrone athlete Nick Griggs, Eurovision winner Charlie McGettigan, country singer Lisa McHugh, former NYPD officer Denis Mulcahy, and artist Jacqueline Rooney.
From 24 September the rest of the series lands at 9.00pm — starting with Lisa McHugh on living with Functional Neurological Disorder, trigeminal neuralgia and sepsis, then Nick Griggs on the loss of his brother Josh, Denis Mulcahy on Project Children, Jacqueline Rooney on breast cancer and art, Charlie McGettigan on the loss of his son Shayne, Andrea Begley on music and sight loss, Eugene McVeigh speaking about his brother Columba (one of the Disappeared), and Colin Bell on Kevin and the trust that followed.
How to listen
Listen on BBC Radio Ulster at 9.00pm from Thursday 17 September and on BBC Sounds.
Through music, memory and honest conversation, Healing Sounds looks at how songs can comfort, keep memories close, name hard feelings — and help people find a way forward.
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