Music At Maddens Podcast

Music At Maddens Podcast #007 - Preserving Ireland's Forgotten Melodies with Ella & Deirdre McGrory

• Maddens Bar • Season 1 • Episode 7

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Welcome to a new episode of Music At Maddens Podcast with me, Lynette Fay.


This week we welcome Ella & Deirdre McGrory to the podcast.


Music has shaped Donegal sisters Deirdre and Ella McGrory in so many ways. 


Growing up in McGrory’s music venue in Culdaff in the Inisowen peninsula, how their parents support encouraged them to follow music, and how, through music, they have found the best version of themselves. 


A joyful conversation.


New episodes every Monday.


Maddens Bar

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Ri-Ra

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Website: www.ri-ra.beer


McIlroy Guitars

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Website: https://mcilroyguitars.co.uk/


Dunville’s Irish Whiskey

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Website: https://dunvilleswhiskey.com/


Anzac Drinks

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Speaker 2:

Well, hello again, everybody, and welcome to Music at Madden's with me, lynette Faye. This is a podcast recorded in the beautiful snug upstairs in Madden's Bar in Belfast, which is widely recognised as the home of traditional music in the city. That's fair enough comment.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we've got a nod here from our guests this week before we've been introduced to them.

Speaker 2:

So we platform musicians on the podcast from all over and celebrate our wonderful community of people who are into traditional or folk music in any way. And as well as listening on Spotify and Apple, you can also watch on YouTube and catch up with any episodes you might have missed, and please leave a review and subscribe while you're there. So this week, I'm just delighted that this pair have agreed to come in today. Sisters Deirdre and Ella McGrory have joined me in the snug. They're from Inishowen, from a musical family. Deirdre sings and plays whistle and Ella plays fiddle and piano, and both have studied music and are graduates of the Irish World Academy in UL.

Speaker 2:

Both received first class honours, if you don't mind, and their EP Linear captured their favourite music from childhood, and they've just released Streets of Derry featuring Paul McClure. So welcome to Music of Madness. First of all, it's great to see both of you. Thank you so much for having us, so, so welcome. Well, we're going to hear a rendition of the Streets of Derry after the chat. So why was this the song you wanted to record just after? This isn't the first recording after your EP, is it?

Speaker 3:

We had a bit of a hiatus. We'd been doing bits of gigs and stuff, stuff, but that's the first proper recording. But it was you who like with that with streets of dairy yeah, do you want to say yeah?

Speaker 1:

so we um would always have grown up listening to all of the kind of classic albums, one of them being the paul brady and andy irvine album, and that song in particular we just always go back to and have heard so many other people singing it and I guess, like with the connection of Inishowen and Derry, it's very close to our hearts. And, yeah, for my final performance then I did up an arrangement of it and had like a kind of string section. There was Conor Caldwell, cueva Flaherty yeah, there was a lovely, lovely bunch of musicians there playing and I got Deirdre in to sing and, yeah, we both really loved it. And a good few people had said to us and we we would play it ourselves, like at different gigs or whatever. And a lot of people had said to us like, why wasn't that on the EP? Would you record that?

Speaker 1:

and we are, you know, a good few years later we finally got our heads together and recorded it, and it's kind of mad that it took us so long, because our dad records everything in the house. Yeah, I think we have no excuses because of that, though, you're not booking into the studio, so we're all like if we're free in an evening.

Speaker 2:

Ah sure, we'll, we'll go and record now, yeah, but you're not putting a time limit on it, a date in the diary, so to speak.

Speaker 1:

We would probably need that, but yeah, so we released that yesterday, yes, and we're hoping to maybe build on that and create a bit of it good stuff.

Speaker 2:

I'm glad to hear it because I remember receiving the linear EP and listening to it and thought it was just gorgeous and then I realised then you know who you were, where you came from, and it's lovely to see the next generation just coming to fruition now and blossoming in the way that you two have and I know there's another generation coming up behind you as well in Inishowen.

Speaker 2:

So for anybody who's not familiar with that area and I wouldn't be myself I have to say but there's something in the water, there's something around Inishowen, when it comes to music, that is just so rich. Like how aware were you of that when?

Speaker 3:

you were growing up. Our mother is a musician and she was taught by denny mclaughlin. Both of our uncles play music. We were surrounded by music. Our dad owned a music venue as well, in kuldaff mcgurry's hotel. So we were constantly surrounded by music and we were so lucky to be exposed to every genre that came through, because McGorry's wasn't just trad, there was a whole mix of music.

Speaker 3:

So that's played a big part, I think, in our musical upbringing. But for Inishone in particular, the musicians who used to come in to do the sessions and stuff we were just surrounded. I don't think we even even were aware we are now, but at the time it was second nature, it was our life, yeah. So looking back now, constantly surrounded by like denny mclaughlin he just recently passed away um seamus grant as well he passed on when we were quite young um theresa mcclure, theyure the list is endless.

Speaker 2:

And then you have all these legendary figures who were collecting as well, and that seems to be very prominent in a show, and I know on your mummy's latest album she calls it poor, and I thought it was the most beautiful word I'd never heard. So it's PO. Fara Óir In the Irish language means literally like people, families who have music just dripping out of them. Yeah, and that's what it is, and we all know families like that who are poor. Yeah, and then she references isn't it a? Charles McGlinchey specifically there, but he's only one of a number who had collected songs and tunes from the area the amazing thing about Charles McGlinchey as well.

Speaker 3:

He collected a lot of the songs that were the last of the Gaeltacht in Urus. There was a Gaeltacht, I think, until the early 1900s in Urus, which is a very secluded part of Inishowen. So a lot of the songs and poems he collected were some of the last in that Urus Irish, which is so special that they've been captured. So she's. We went and put melodies to some of the songs Gorgeous. And yes, there's the likes of Honoria Galway as well. She's an amazing collector. We've just finished a big project there. There was a documentary made on her. So there's Angela Byrne, wonderful historian. John Molden as well was involved in it. Brilliant song collector. He's from belfast originally but he's living in a show at the minute. And but what?

Speaker 2:

was the significance of this woman, honoria goby. Like I don't want to go into it in any in the detail it deserves, you can watch the documentary for reference, and I'm sure you can find that on youtube, can you, I think?

Speaker 3:

it's yeah, they're going to make it public soon we just had a screen in there at Ergo Arts but she's been a figure.

Speaker 2:

You've lived with all your lives knowing about her. But she had she's again a collector and had all these collections of music from the mid 19th century am I right? And around the famine time? Yeah, famine it was.

Speaker 3:

All of her music was collected during the famine, but we only I can't remember it was mum or someone had came on. I think neil or dad had came on her collection. I don't know was it through it or something grace toland used to work in it. Um, but yes, that was around 2016,. I think, yeah, around 2016. So only then we started uncovering all this music and Old Irish Cronons and other tunes is her published collection. But recently then, through this documentary, angela's just uncovered more songs, so they were arranged as part of the documentary. We've done as well. So, again, breathing more songs. So they were arranged as part of the documentary. We've done as well. So, again, breathing more life. Getting to sing these songs is amazing. I feel really, really fortunate to get to perform these songs, because they haven't been performed in hundreds of years.

Speaker 2:

So you're rubbing your hands together, thinking more materials.

Speaker 1:

Yes, it is.

Speaker 2:

Is there a pride, responsibility, then, when it is for a minute shown and maybe songs that haven't been heard in a few generations as well?

Speaker 3:

yeah, in ways, but it's gorgeous because you can. You don't have any point of reference for them. You're there with the music. Some of them don't have melodies to them either, so we're either coming up with melodies for them.

Speaker 2:

Don't have um melodies to them either.

Speaker 3:

So we're either coming up with melodies for them, um, but we have no reference for them. We can take them wherever we want, and barton tersh has done an exceptional job, yeah, arranging some of these songs like oh, they're just, they're beautiful. It's amazing, all the names you've just mentioned.

Speaker 2:

They're like the brain, the musical brains and talent that you have working on all these projects.

Speaker 2:

I'd say it's just you know, it's an incredible energy to be drawn from and then also something you mentioned there, deirdre, about growing up in the hotel with not just traditional music around you, but loads of different types of music as well. You can tell that in your the way you two play music as well. There's there'sling, you're bringing in loads of different genres, influences, and I think that's what makes your music stand out. Was that something you were conscious to do when you started recording together?

Speaker 1:

I think so, like we've both as much as we've been into trad also equally love like soul or like folk music, like you know, the more alternative folk or soul or like folk music like you know, kind of the more alternative folk or jazz or like funk yeah loads of different things because musicians just love music like surprise and we were really lucky, like there were so many days where, like we would come home from school and daddy would be like, oh, there's this band from egypt or somewhere in for whatever kind of festival and you'd sit up at the sound desk and you'd listen to it and I remember from like, being really young, just looking at that and being like, wow, I want to try and absorb as much of this as possible.

Speaker 1:

Um, and I think, like for like, for me playing piano, it's really nice to have, like you know, to mix with your voice. That's you, you're very traditional, but you also love also like adding in all these other genres and it's lovely to try, and I don't know just create something that feels kind of unique to us. But we're definitely we're very inspired by a lot of the other like amazing kind of trad singers. Like cara dylan was a huge inspiration. We went to see every single gig she did. I think she did every year. She did at least one gig in mcgurray's and we were there, yeah, and everyone alton.

Speaker 3:

Alton, yeah, maria is such an inspiration of december days to play every year.

Speaker 2:

So same again, maria there's like mary dylan as well yeah, what was it about those women particularly that stood out to you?

Speaker 1:

I just think they're like I don't know the. There's something so pure about all of their voices. And I also just love the way, especially like Cara Dillon and Sam arrange all of the songs, like it's just really yeah, you completely get lost.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, Like listening to their albums. You can just.

Speaker 2:

And also they tour. You know they tour songs, well-known songs apart and then put them back together again in ways that hadn't been imagined. Like I'm just thinking, black is the Colour's coming into my head. You know that riff at the start that just is is hypnotic and just draws you in and then Cara starts just singing. You're like, and I remember when that album came out because this is how old I am, but it was absolutely amazing that it was somebody from here, yes, home here in

Speaker 3:

the northern accent.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, that's it, it just all seems so honest and so authentic and, yeah, I think that side of irish music for me has always been what like draws me back in or makes me so passionate about it, because it just feels really natural and it looks really natural. It's like seeing all these people and hearing them talk and sing in their own accents and have all these songs in their area and then did you also think, seeing so many brilliant artists coming to the stage, in the hotel and having access?

Speaker 3:

to that.

Speaker 2:

Did that also encourage you to do what you're doing, to be performers, to get up on a stage? That basically became second nature because it was something you'd seen so often. And now I'd like to say a few words about our very kind sponsors, ríra Irish Lager Now Ríra, if you haven't heard about it. It kind of sums up the unpredictable development that Irish people are so very good at, particularly here in Maddens, in the heart of Belfast. So Rí Rá celebrates the best bits of being Irish by creating reasons to talk, to meet, to grá, to bant, to hear, to be heard, to be le chéile, just that little more often. So music at Maddens dig it and digging tossa because inish scoop la focail, a charda for eight teams and over, and please drink responsibly a couple of focail inish for our a hurry and fod creil ta seo.

Speaker 2:

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Speaker 3:

In primary and secondary school, none of our friends really played music. So and if anything.

Speaker 1:

I think it was a bit of a like weird thing. I was definitely slagged for it, for a long time and and I think it was only then, like when we started getting on well or like winning things at Flas, then people were like, oh, that's actually cool, or you know, getting opportunities Like we both got to go to the Cairngorm-Caillie Trail when we were I was 2015.

Speaker 3:

I got to go you went like two years after me. Like we spent the summer in Scotland gigging around the Highlands. Like we spent the summer in Scotland gigging around the Highlands when we were like 16. It was amazing and our our friends be like what are you doing? That's so weird. You can't go to your formal because you have to go to a flat. What's that? Why are you going there? Why are you going to Sligo to a flat?

Speaker 2:

but it was just such a different life and opened up your mind, and you know, going to something like that Karen Gorm, and then maybe be exposed to a lot of Scottish music when you're there as well.

Speaker 3:

Well, there's that huge tie with Donegal in Scotland.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Like huge and a lot of, even a lot of the songs around Anishinaabe have ties to songs in Scotland as well along the Western Isles. So yeah it just Scotland was amazing. I loved it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, met so many cool people through that. But I think, like I don't know about you, but I don't know if I ever had like a real long term goal of like I want to be on stage.

Speaker 1:

But we were just always playing music, like we're just always at everything, and Mami also did a lot of which I'm glad that she did, but there was a lot of like wobbling, but I'm actually so glad of it because it kind of it got rid of that sense of feeling scared about doing things and then it just drives you on because you meet more people and you're you're having more and more crack and making more connections and getting better at music as well yeah, that's the thing like it's. I don't know, I think it all just kind of fell very naturally.

Speaker 2:

Yeah tell me about the support of your parents and having you know musicians for for parents people who understand music, love music. Music is life to them. Yeah. And then, and you know, when your mommy's concerned as well the work she's done to in preservation and carrying things on from generation to generation as well, well, you know how important was that, do you think, to get you to this point? It was, yeah, hugely important, it's the driver yeah, for both of us.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, like she obviously with a group of other people, set up the initial traditional music project. So, um, when we were young there was constantly all of these kind of workshops and performances and it is probably how we met some of our closest friends.

Speaker 1:

Still, when we were like five and six, running around at all the little summer schools and so many musicians, because there was constantly new musicians coming up to teach and, yeah, she was always kind of hammering home how important it was to when we were doing flas and all, we were playing tunes that she had found from the area, um, and weren't just kind of going with whatever was popular, you know, with the flag and his style. It was all very, very much so like being proud of your own heritage and she put so much work into doing everything to preserve it and uncovering more and then encouraging everyone in our area to keep on playing.

Speaker 3:

And she's still teaching in so many schools.

Speaker 1:

Any shop you walk into, there's children hi, róisín, she knows everyone, or then a lot of older people too, when your child doesn't like. Your mommy taught me music and then she's teaching their kids music and then our dad as well, with McGruys.

Speaker 3:

They did so much, brought so much business to C. Much business tickled off and again that there were sessions there like three nights a week. I don't think there were many sessions anywhere else in a at that point. That was really like late 90s to kind of 2015, um, and it was just. It was thriving there were so it was like also that employment as well for people in the area it like gives people a reason to stay there and it made it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's such such a cool kind of place to be and I still absolutely love Kulav, but it is funny how, yeah, like our memories from childhood are like this really vibrant place. Obviously, when you get older, you do, yeah, we're a bit more aware of the world. But, um, yeah, it's, it's really cool to look back on that. I think we definitely didn't really take it on board. You know, when you're a child, you don't you?

Speaker 2:

don't you just? You just get on with it and I think it's only time whenever you realize that you start to see parts of the jigsaw of life coming together and you realize all right, that's why I'm doing this, because this has all been there all along, yeah, and then you can see the patterns developing.

Speaker 2:

And then, in terms of both of you, then, as I mentioned in the introduction, you both decided to go to UL and study music there, so you went first Deirdre. So why, what was the big decision? Or when did it become apparent that that was going to be the path you were, you would follow?

Speaker 3:

it was probably after I went to Scotland. I also was not like the best in school, didn't really get on well academically at other subjects. Music and art were the only things I was really good at. So I was like, right, at least go do singing. So I'd applied for a few places, um, and got into UL and it was the best four years ever. I don't know what exactly. I panicked a wee bit. I think there was a bit of that. I was quite young as well doing my leaving cert. So I panicked a bit and I was like, right, I should go do something I'm good at no, I'll hopefully get a degree out of this. But it turned out to be the best thing, best thing ever for me going. I didn't know anyone in Limerick. None of my friends from school went, moved down on my own like knew a whole new life, a whole new friend group.

Speaker 2:

It was yeah and what about the degree itself? Then, um, because that is world renowned and, uh, you know, started up by the great Michal O'Sullivan, and the rest is history. As they say, and people who go there tend to seek each other. Bands have formed as part of the um, the degree. And then, um, you know just the really interesting things that people end up doing, like how did it open your mind further to the possibility of music? And then, I suppose as well in your case, you just said that you know, academically, other subjects weren't making sense to you, but music did. How did it um, enrich that for you?

Speaker 3:

um, the course itself is 50 academic, 50 performance. It was the balance of that. For me that was the saving grace, because when you had big assignments and stuff due then you had to go practice as well for exams and stuff. So it was having that physical versus academic thing. For me was I think that's what kept me going and kept me in university, because I just the thing of sitting and doing exams and stuff in school. I was not able for it. So for me that was it. And plus the people coming through there all the time, it was incredible. You'd walk in the door like maybe we would hung over after a night out and there'd be like I don't know, like brian finnegan standing there like ready for a workshop okay, I guess yeah, and even me all walking around too.

Speaker 3:

There was such. He had such a presence. I remember the day he passed away too. I was in university and I do have to say I feel like something left the Irish World Academy that day. It was such a sad day, but he was the most incredible man. Did he actually teach you or did you have?

Speaker 3:

access to him at all. No, he would have done talks and stuff in the university, but no, he never, never taught me we. Mijella Bartley was my whistle teacher there, and Roshini Gallagher was my singing tutor, and Karen Casey as well for a while too. So that was. That was amazing and they like it was just the some of the most random modules, but I got so much out of them. There was like a cricket tunes module there one year. It was a. I can't remember her name, sophie, she's a French-Canadian fiddle player, but there were so many.

Speaker 1:

West African drumming West.

Speaker 3:

African drumming.

Speaker 1:

You could do flamenco dancing.

Speaker 3:

Whatever you wanted to do.

Speaker 1:

Really, when you try and explain what goes on in the academy, it is so funny to people who are used to college being like going into a lecture room and then going to the library.

Speaker 3:

I remember walking out of one of our classes one day and there were all of the ones from contemporary dance were doing some piece on the stairs in the academy. They were all you it was. It was so, so cool. You'd have the gospel choir standing out in the foyer practicing some days. It was just like, and you could do aerial dance if you wanted to, as an extra module.

Speaker 2:

That sounds amazing it really is, it must be something nearly sad when it was over oh my god yeah, yeah. How do you take it forward then, ella, after you finish a degree like that, when it's been such a clearly a mind-blowing experience for you?

Speaker 1:

um, then you've to.

Speaker 2:

You see, you've got the certificate here you go, go out and drive the car.

Speaker 2:

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Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's funny. I think a lot of people go down the path after finishing a new L where they maybe just take on doing a lot of dance tours and they're just on the road. A lot of people might go on and do teaching or whatever. You can just rock up and say look, I'm qualified.

Speaker 1:

You know, you still have to kind of earn your um stripes, yeah, and you have to build a reputation for yourself as a musician and get asked to do gigs and everything um, that all comes with just being out there doing it, um, so that, trying to adjust to that after and realizing that, okay, you have to graft, like once you get into this world of music if you want to stay in it.

Speaker 1:

But, yeah, you have to graft. So I um, yeah, I've done a lot of teaching music since graduating. Um, yeah, just kind of like on the side of doing gigs and, um, I was asked to join Three on the Bund who were also formed in Limerick and they were all a few years ahead of me. Um was asked to join them and since that, like, I've been on tour a good bit with them, which has been amazing and I've got to see such cool parts of the world and it's been such good exposure for me to just try and get used to being on stage and the whole lifestyle of turn and everything and being part of a band as well is a different dynamic yeah, definitely, and um, as much as I knew them from before.

Speaker 1:

It's like you get to know people in such an intimate way because you're on the road with them, like in the car with them, every day, but we have great crack, like we really do have great crack and everyone has, you know, their head screwed on and have all their own kind of things that they do. So when you come together it's kind of a lovely little escape where we all just have our own, you know.

Speaker 2:

It's great to see and also you're buzzing from it and it seems that the degree has also given a lot of confidence to go and try things, do this, do that, and also confidence in your ability and what you can do and what you can offer.

Speaker 3:

That was the thing as well about being from Minisho. You did Sheensa one year, didn't you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

But I never got the opportunity to do that she never got the opportunity to to do metal, didn't really do scores, only did like grippy calls, so that we performed in a very like around in a shown. It's a widespread area but we're so secluded up there so we're very used to performing around there. So actually going down to Limerick and having to perform in front of people who are your peers, who are really, really talented musicians, that was such exposure therapy you know it was so, so good I had to get over any fear.

Speaker 2:

That was there. You really had to just get over it and get on with it. And the competitions you mentioned there, deirdre, like the likes of Mehal and Sheensa, and the SCORE, which is the GAA cultural competition which is run every year, and then obviously you have Lachioil na hÉireann also. So these are all big competitions in the calendar of teenagers. For some teenagers, basically the year revolves around these competitions and the different rounds. It's the most exciting time of your life.

Speaker 2:

And you know, I remember we had Slogu instead of Seansa and Easter week you had it blocked out because you were getting on the bus and you were going with your pals to wherever the finals were on, because it moved around every year and that was part of the crack. So those competitions and being involved in them. So you said you didn't have the chance to do that but you would have done the FLA Coy. What was that? How important were those competitions to you growing up?

Speaker 1:

They were important in one way. But I think we both, from quite early on, were kind of very skeptical or not we were, we weren't as like hardcore competitive I'd say, um, as a lot of the ones you'd see storming out because they're, they're didn't get like third recommended.

Speaker 2:

I always find that bizarre there's a drama series yeah, competitions, that hasn't been written yet.

Speaker 1:

Fla mum, yeah, and I think, like Our mum, like she was, she was definitely Encouraging us Well, sometimes pushing us To do things and saying that we should Just go up and do whatever, but like she did not care.

Speaker 2:

Or her daddy. They're like no one really cares.

Speaker 1:

If you win or lose or whatever.

Speaker 3:

But for it also was good just practicing yes, it taught me how to practice. That's the thing, I think.

Speaker 2:

That's the thing parents some parents are grateful for because it gives you a bit of a goal. Yeah, so it's not about the competition, it's not about winning, it's about right, get up them stairs and will you practice? Because if you don't have that goal you're, they're not going to practice and the parent can't threaten you with anything either, and it also really humbles you when you rock up and you just make an absolute.

Speaker 3:

And I have so many times Hames of it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I've also done that so much where I just sat up and blanked and then you know you're there as like an 11-year-old and you just have to be like, okay, you have to get on with it it teaches you good perseverance.

Speaker 3:

I think I did find flaws for me. It was all because I didn't practice enough.

Speaker 1:

I find them so anxiety inducing.

Speaker 2:

I think it's brilliant because there'd be so many people watching or listening to this who are saying, yes, me too. You know, not everybody can be the best and there have to be champions and there have to be winners. But there's also a lot of people who did blank on stage, when they forgot the words. I remember Cara Dillon actually telling me that that she, I think, was an Irish song and she just went totally blank, made up the words and didn't get through and felt awful afterwards, you know but that's what people do, because I suppose it's how you react in those moments.

Speaker 2:

That that's what is all about, isn't it? It is, yeah.

Speaker 1:

But still, we had a lot of great times. Oh, we had the best times. Yeah, also the group of girls. For us it was like the social event of your summer, if we could get past the Ulster. There was one year we were playing. Oh, we were absolutely Under 12, actually loving life. All of our best friends are still from that group of people From when we were under 12.

Speaker 3:

We got first in the Ulster one year and it was Still one of the highlights of my life, yeah. It was just, we were from such a small branch as well In a show and we're coming up against. I remember Ards and Cloughar Valley and all We'd be getting there, these kids. I remember my competition one year, for whistle was locker mckibben, james mckenna, shanae mckenna. I literally got there. I was like what, what you're taking over the cash drawer here but, um, oh, it's just, it was so.

Speaker 3:

It was so cool to see that and especially then as we were like, got older, we would go to the flat more just for the social event that was probably the driver for me as well a big driver for me to go to limerick, because it was you met people from everywhere and see these gigs, and it was whenever flat tv started up, actually 2013. Yeah, that was like, for us that was the big year.

Speaker 1:

I also. I have a good few students who want to do the flat, so I like help them prep their tunes and stuff and I always like hammer home to them about this. Just like do it for the crack, do not take this seriously. Like adjudicators will say lots of things that you will disagree with and like that's totally fine. Will disagree with and like that's totally fine. I had one year where I won accompaniment at the all ireland and I I think it was by complete chance because I was just like I'm gonna just play whatever, and it was definitely leaning on more. So the jazzy side and the guy I can't actually remember who it was lovely man though he who he plays, he wakes up and she won.

Speaker 1:

But he says the only reason that it stood out, because I wasn't doing the flask style. It was different to everyone else's you were true to yourself yeah. But then the next year I went in and I'll not say who was adjudicating, but they says you shouldn't play minor chords in anything, you should always just lean on the major side.

Speaker 2:

And then I says at that point, okay, I'm done with the flask hang up your hat, but finding that own style and then having the confidence to do that. I remember walking into a session I think it was in the Garrick Deirdre and you're sitting there rocking on on the whistle, just rocking out the whistle, but it was just fantastic. I think in that particular group it was mostly fellas, and then you in the middle of it all, and I thought that was just so important to see that. Yeah, do you think, though, there used to be a thing where the classes would be full of young girls, and then they'd get to a certain age, in their teenage years, and then they would just stop playing music and you wouldn't see girls in sessions and you wouldn't see young women? You know, coming into that kind of environment is that? Is that changing? Can you see more and more young women sticking at it and jumping into the session and just playing their tunes?

Speaker 3:

yeah, well, I think that a lot of that comes from mum as well, so many of the sessions you walk into that she'd be playing.

Speaker 1:

She is the only woman sitting keeping up with the rest of them, especially when she was like in her 20s and she would have been going to, like glencombe kill and, like you know, big into the whole donegal fiddle scene and you look back at the photos and there might be her and maraid and maybe a couple of other women in some of the pictures, but it's just all men. Um, and like that's the case, you know, across the board, I think, for irish music and now it's definitely changing. But, like I also even think of whenever I started getting into piano accompaniment, all of the people I looked up to are also all fellas now amazing musicians. But, um, yeah, I I do like that there's way more representation now and also a lot more women who are continuing to tour and be professional musicians and don't just because there's that's such a narrative where you do a couple of years and then you have to settle down and get a different kind of job now, when you say that you know most of the ones you look up to are fellas, there's also a woman you look up to oh yes

Speaker 1:

there's two no, that's the exception yeah, there's.

Speaker 2:

There's two kind of um reasons why I'm going to mention her as well is that your two sisters from donegal, you know, and then you think of the brennan's and you think the brennan sisters, and then you think of myra and chan and he go even though they're from me, but they're really donegal yes, um and they would say that themselves.

Speaker 3:

I would say and we claim them and you came them um, but you know those influences we have.

Speaker 2:

There been influences on you, um, and what they've achieved not just locally, nationally, but on a global stage yeah, yeah, oh, my god, they are just incredible.

Speaker 1:

I think it's again the thing of like sisters singing in harmony and just the way that they blend together and their knowledge and everything of the music is just phenomenal. And yeah, I was saying to you before I got the absolute honour of doing I think it was a good two and a half hours worth of an interview with Trina for my thesis, because I was trying to look at kind of the roots of piano accompaniment and how it's developed in Irish music.

Speaker 2:

This is Trina Ní Gónal, who basically revolutionised accompaniment in that way with her work with the Bothy Band and. Relativity and Night Noise and all the other projects she's been involved in?

Speaker 1:

Yeah and it was incredible and she talked a lot about all of her background and telling stories and then also would play a few tunes and sing songs in the middle of it all and I just sat with my jaw on the floor just like it was incredible and I'm really, really glad that I have that, even to look back on myself. Um, yeah, I, they're just such inspirational women and would have been very influenced by that.

Speaker 3:

You know that jazzy side of things yeah, mixing it all up like you were saying and, like you, do that a lot in your singing as well, deirdre yeah, I definitely do see.

Speaker 3:

I was classically trained and also did a lot of musical theatre growing up, so would have done all of my grades and stuff and then, whilst I was doing that was teaching myself traditional singing. So I started singing when I was about eight and again the flaw was somewhere my mum was like, and again the flaw was somewhere mommy's like you need to enter the same competition, so learn these songs. It was definitely carried on songs, um, and yeah, god, that's so I've. I think I've been learning it all at the same time. So I think I don't really have a certain style. I don't know, I'm unsure of what my yeah, my style is.

Speaker 2:

I don't know. I think there's a style In there there. Definitely it notes you singing and how you interpret songs. For sure, and I just wanted To ask you as well On that, what was it like For the two of you To perform On your mummies Latest album, poor, with Roisin McGrawy? It was lovely.

Speaker 1:

I mean, it's always nice that she asks us as well, yeah, she's very sound for us she has access to all of the best musicians in Ireland and she still wants her wee daughters. Nah it was lovely.

Speaker 3:

I know that album was lovely to the whole you were saying there earlier about it but all of the tunes are composed by local people, like all people we know and it's just everything about it is so meaningful, so you wanted to.

Speaker 1:

You know, you, if you can contribute in any way, and everyone, I think, who was all on board for um giving up their compositions, where everyone was just so proud of it and like, I think, as much as it is mammy's name on it, it's really not about her like she's trying to capture all these people who might not ever record their own stuff. You know so she's recording their tunes, so they're out there and um, yeah, no, it was really special and very proud of her oh no, and rightly so, and rightly so.

Speaker 2:

So what's next for you two then?

Speaker 1:

we have a session later on in deer's head, that's as far as we're going right now.

Speaker 2:

Well, you've got a new single. The Streets of Derry and that's following on from that gorgeous EP Linear you released a little while ago, and if anybody hasn't listened to it, go and find it. It's on Bandcamp and the new single is on Bandcamp as well. So what will you be working together more in the future? Can that happen? Because you live busy lives?

Speaker 3:

well, yeah well, you're based in Galway at the minute and I'm living in Donegal. I have I'm finishing up work, um for a charity there, so I've had a very full-on job the past year and a half. So I have, I'm starting to get a bit of mental space again to get back into playing. I haven't really been playing or singing that much, so I'm finding it very cathartic at the minute getting to play with Ella.

Speaker 1:

So hopefully definitely trying to push doing more stuff together. And also, we've talked about this so much but I would love if we could get a bit of a jazzy backing. You know a drummer, bass player, guitar player to maybe do a bit of a jazzy backing. You know a drummer, bass player, guitar player to maybe do a bit of a tour at some point.

Speaker 3:

Um, so definitely want to try and start working on that and just get ourselves out there looking at more music as well I want to do that as well. Go through collections and try and find more songs. So that is on my agenda anyways.

Speaker 2:

I have this well coming from. In a show on, there's absolutely no shortage of material, as we've just spoken about throughout the conversation. It's been so good to talk to you today, thank you very much for joining us here in the Snog, at Music at Madden's, and now we're going to hear the new single Streets of Derry.

Speaker 1:

Thank, you very much, thank you.