Narrow streets and colourful fisherman’s cottages roll down to the centre of Mevagissey, where a twin harbour, built off the back of the thriving pilchard industry of the 18th and 19th centuries, shelters a flotilla of working fishing boats and pleasure craft secured to land by rusty chains.
Seaweed-scarred buoys bobble and worn lobster pots await their next outing while the scent of pasties drifts across the madding tourist crowd. It’s a classic seaside image that couldn’t be more Kernow if it tried. But then it does try. Harder. And effortlessly, as a deep harmony of male voices interrupts the squawking of seagulls.
“First thing in the morning, on Chapel Carn Brea. To gaze at the Scillies, in the blue far away. For this is my Cornwall, and I’ll tell you why. Because I was born here and here I shall die...”
It’s mid-October, I’m on the south coast of Cornwall for the sixth Mevagissey Shanty Festival and that was ‘Cornwall My Home’, a modern shanty popularised by the group Fisherman’s Friends. This is my maiden musical voyage and I’m here because of new and old: a blossoming love of shanty and a lifelong attraction to England’s rugged south-western tip. My wife, friends and I will spend the weekend in the harbour celebrated chef Rick Stein called the “prettiest in Cornwall, if not the UK”, discovering more about the enduring appeal of sea shanties and Mevagissey.
The history (and legends) of Mevagissey
The village of Mevagissey certainly has a past. Legend has it that locals hung a monkey, believing it to be a Napoleonic spy. I suspect that’s apocryphal as I’ve heard similar about Hartlepool. There are definite historic truths, however. Its name derives from two villages either side of the harbours. They were named after Celtic saints, St Mevan and St Issey. Over time, they joined by the Cornish word for ‘and’ (hag) to become Mevagissey. Legend goes it was the first town in Cornwall to be lit by electric streetlamps, the energy coming from a local power station built in 1895 and fuelled by pilchard oil.
The original generator for the streetlamps is now a toilet block, which will prove a popular pitstop over this three-day event that welcomes around 70 shanty groups from all over the world.
The (unexpected) venues of Mevagissey's shanty festival
The shanty groups coming to Mevagissey's Sea Shanty Festival sing in one or more of 14 venues, from pubs and social clubs to the Mevagissey Museum and even a fish and chip shop. A free shuttle bus will transfer them and their audiences to nearby Pentewan, which houses two further venues.
The beating heart of the festival is a marquee, aka the Keltek Stage after its local brewery sponsors. It’s positioned on the jetty, which is why 2025’s event has been pushed back a week, as high tides would result in very wet singers.
Here, against the backdrop of The Lemonaires, a 10-deep choir of “proud Celtic men” from Falmouth, I catch up with festival founder Tristan Netherton of the Stuns’ls shanty group, named after a stud sail, sailing lingo for sail extensions on a tall ship.
Tristan Netherton on the launch of the Mevagissey Sea Shanty Festival
Tristan Netherton is a bit of a celebrity around these parts, after featuring in the first BBC Two series of Rick Stein’s Cornwall. The Stuns’ls have played to King Charles (then Prince of Wales) and the attendees of the 2021 G7 summit, plus they’ve recorded for Warner Brothers. Netherton is from nearby Sticker and is a man whose Cornish family history reaches back several generations.
“I launched the festival to showcase the tradition of sea-shanty singing,” he says. “Yet a big driver was to increase trade and commerce in the local area. Mevagissey in October is quiet, as the main tourist season is over. But businesses must still pay their staff.
“The first year [2019] we welcomed 26 groups,” Netherton explains. “That’s great for the village as, just from singers, you’re starting to fill up accommodation. A pub landlady asked me how much it would cost to feature the groups. I said you don’t have to pay them, just give them a beer. Well, with the free beer she gave away plus that drunk by the visitors, she went through 13 barrels on the Friday night alone. She spent the Saturday morning running around trying to find extra beer from other pubs. But it’s great, as pubs have a hard time generally and this really brings the visitors in.”
Around 10,000 people will be lifted by the shanty harmonies over the three festival days – the biggest yet. The 2024 edition of the nearby Falmouth Festival also broke records, with around 100,000 people in attendance.
“Ours is slightly different in that while we’re predominantly shanty, there are other genres, too, just in case you’ve had enough of [the shanty] ‘John Kanaka’,” says Netherton. “You might want to listen to folk or a ukelele group. In fact, I’ve twisted my other half’s arm to play this weekend. She’s part of a barbershop quartet called Fortuity. They’re ranked 10th in the world and are off to sing in America next week.”
The democratic appeal of sea shanty – and shanty festivals
It’s fair to say ‘A Drop of Nelson’s Blood’ plays out in Mevagissey many times over this memorable weekend. But each rendition sounds fresh and vibrant due to the democratic love of shanty. “I really like the age range across the groups,” says Somerset-based Ben Palmer, who is in Cornwall specifically for the Mevagissey Sea Shanty Festival. “We’ve seen men and women in their 80s harmonising with 20-year-olds. It shows how shanties are for everyone.”
“There’s also a clear sense of community,” Palmer adds. “On the first night, we ended up in the backroom of the Fountain Inn. We’d seen two groups [the all-female ACapella Moonshine and the all-male Mevagissey Quay Notes], who were brilliant. We thought that was the end but then one person sat down and broke out into shanty. Another person then picked up the shanty baton and started singing, before a chap who looked like a hardened builder sang like a dream. It was beautiful.”
This strong sense of togetherness pervaded Mevagissey and is symptomatic of the maritime spirit, says Netherton. “We don’t charge for a festival like this, but we obviously have costs like erecting stages and the marquee, so to raise funds we’ll have events like shanty nights in the build-up. If I get on the phone to another group and they’re available, they’ll happily play for a ticketed event for free. Well, maybe for a pint.”
No-one epitomises this sense of community more than Netherton himself. One of the aims of the festival is to raise funds for local groups, with over £10,000 raised so far. His dream is to give out interest-free loans for those in the area, but there’s one clear proviso: it must benefit the community. “If Mevagissey rowing club came to us, for example, and asked for a loan for a new boat, immediately we’d ask how would it benefit the village? That then gets them thinking that they’d organise a gig-rowing regatta, bringing 20 crews from Cornwall and beyond. They’d advertise it, so it’d pull in holidaymakers. The better you can make the business economy, the better you make life for everybody here.”
Netherton and the festival certainly brought together visitors, locals and singers with not one single utterance of ‘emmet’ (a derogatory Cornish term for tourists). It also attracted groups from mainland Europe, for shanty isn’t a solely British love affair.
Sea shanty traditions in Europe – and the rest of the world
French and Breton sailors have their own shanty traditions, including songs such as ‘Le Capitaine de San Malo’. Popular festivals take place in Brest and Paimpol, while one of the biggest is held in Germany – over 100,000 visitors attend the International Festival Maritime Bremen each year.
“There are also shanty festivals in the Netherlands, including one we organise in our home town of Appingedam,” says Janneke Woldhuis of the group Armstrong’s Patent, who sang six times over the Mevagissey weekend. “We’ve been singing for almost 33 years.” Woldhuis says shanties are growing in popularity in the Netherlands, but they love singing in England because it’s the mother tongue of shanties. “The audience know most of the songs, so they join in with the choruses,” he says. “Mevagissey is special. It’s not only beautiful but the venues are all quite close together. There are some nice pubs, too.”
North America and Canada also host sea shanty festivals, including the Fundy Sea Shanty Festival in New Brunswick, Canada, which is growing, says the festival’s artistic director Gary Caines. “We have around 11 main-stage acts plus another five or six performing at small venues. One half focuses on traditional shanties, while the other is more Celtic music.” Caines says shanties are part of the seafaring roots of the coastal town Fundy-St.Martins.
The Canadians are riding the wave of another shanty renaissance. During Covid lockdown, Scottish post worker Nathan Evans posted a video of himself on TikTok, singing the 19th-century whaling song ‘Wellerman’. A stream of views swirled into a storm. Millions of hits elevated him to star status and hauled sea shanties to a global audience. Soon after, Evans went to number one in the UK charts, while Bristol-based shanty group The Longest Johns signed a deal with Decca Records. This shanty second-wind followed the success of Port Isaac’s Fisherman Friends, who signed a million-pound recording deal with Universal Records in 2010, before a two-film series charted their success.
When steam ships began to replace sailing ships in the latter half of the 19th century, the type of work changed and so did the musical accompaniment. But like the soul-stirring shanties drifting across Mevagissey, their appeal will remain eternal.