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Music At Maddens Podcast
Music at Maddens podcast from the snug upstairs in Belfast’s home of trad. Yarns, pints and laughs with well known faces from the trad music scene. Locals, visitors are all welcome to join in the chat - with Lynette Fay.
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Music At Maddens Podcast
Music At Maddens Podcast #014 - Singing the Old, Making It New with Séamus & Caoimhe Uí Fhlátharta
Welcome to a new episode of Music At Maddens Podcast with me, Lynette Fay.
This week we welcome Séamus & Caoimhe Uí Fhlátharta to the podcast.
This week in the snug, Lynette welcomes siblings Séamus and Caoimhe for a stunning conversation about sean-nós singing, language, and the power of harmony to tell a story all its own.
From kitchen-table sessions in Connemara to international stages, they share how Irish song has shaped their lives and how tradition continues to evolve when it’s guarded with care and opened with courage.
They talk about growing up with music as second nature, how harmony gives emotion to those who don’t yet know the words, and the profound response to their performance of Anach Cuain in memory of Ashling Murphy.
From pandemic collaborations to new songs in Irish and their reimagining of Blackbird through lilting, this is a conversation about creativity, connection, and carrying the language of home forward with heart.
Enjoy!
New episodes every Monday.
Maddens Bar
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Hatch Belfast
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Avalon Guitars
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Smithwicks Irish Ale
Well, hello again from the smoke upstairs here in Madden's Bar in Bells. So, welcome to another episode of the Music at Madden's podcast. I'm Lynette Fay, and thanks to everybody who's listened so far, we are eternally grateful. The response to the idea and to these conversations has just been brilliant. And thanks to all of our guests who come in here and give up their time to sit down in the snug and have a chat that could literally go anywhere. There's we just don't know what direction these conversations will go. And I suppose that's part of the beauty of it, and it's shows how comfy the snug is up here as well. So do subscribe if you're listening and give us a rating, leave a comment. All that feedback really, really matters to the podcast. Um, I should tell you that all proceeds from this podcast as well go to uh they go into a scholarship pot. So Music at Maddens will fund and has already funded scholarships for teenagers to attend master classes or summer schools for traditional music and the Irish language. So we want to help young people find their connection with the music, the language, and find their voice because that's what we're all about. And also, you know, there's that and giving a platform to brilliant people from the traditional music family at home, right across Ireland and internationally. I guess Higgishon and Chachton Shaw. Oh, I've got I've two superstars with me this week, and I'm a wee bit starstruck to be honest with them. Have to fess up there because the current revival and renaissance of traditional music um is in full swing, and two of the superstars are in the snog now. Brother and sister Seamus Agus Kiva, Ela Hurta, you've stolen our hearts with the heart-wrenching, yet heartwarming, harmonising in your interpretations of Shan No songs, which are old style singing in the Irish language, and some of these songs are as old as time. But thanks to Seamus and Kiva, you've opened a door to this tradition for a much wider audience who might never have been exposed to this style of singing. It's more ugum or godjecta falcireau fake music at Madden's asterisk, um, Agas Kujukal and Kujukal of Bullet Shaharin and you. So I I suppose where do you start with a conversation like this? I just wonder, how do you how do you feel when you sing those songs?
SPEAKER_02:It's a great question, and it's always one of those that you kind of have to think about because it's all we've ever known in terms of music. So we're some of those very fortunate people that were exposed to this at a very young age. So I don't remember the first time learning a song as such, or the first time hearing channels. It was never something that was different. So in one sense, it's second nature. It's something that I've never thought about deeper until very recently. That's the other side of it. Very recently I do hold a huge weight when I sing the songs and I realise how valuable they are. I think you were the same how significant these songs are. They're centuries old, but they hold so much wealth of storytelling and culture and insights into how things were in the past and things to learn from the past as well. Um they're so so relevant. Even though that they're so very uh old and ancient and horseshin. Um so yeah, you feel a bit of pressure then when you realise, whoa, you're one of the few that's carrying this torch now, and you have to make sure that it's safe and that the flame stays healthy and alive for the next generation.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And what about you, Kiva?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the very same. Like, like Sheamus said, it's the it's the first music that we were ever introduced to before there was radio in the house and pop music and all that. It's it's just what we knew. So it's so so comfortable to be singing it. And like Shey Mo said, it's just all we want to do is make sure it goes on to the next generation. We have two nieces at home. Um, Connell, our eldest brother, has two nieces, and we're already teaching them all the songs, all the hits, and uh that's just all we want to do. When you say all the hits, like what are the what are the first one of the songs that you're you're looking at at your nieces and thinking, right, you have to know this one.
SPEAKER_01:This is the first one you need to learn.
SPEAKER_00:Well, she loves Peggy Netzer more, she loves Bam Fodzi. Or and uh what was the other one I was saying? Dumps and the gunny knee as well. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:She's got some favourites already. Yeah, I I I can see as well with Salook. Sellog and Chibel will have to say hello to them as well. I can see already that we're not not going to be the cool singers that they're going to very much much come on and push us off and take the pedestal because they're she's so musical already. So so musical. And she's been raised in Irish, and you can see the huge personality. So that excites us that there are more people coming along that are going to be in this world of Irish speaking insanos and music and traditional music. Um it's really exciting to see the next generation already coming up.
SPEAKER_01:It's the whole thing at the minute is just oh I I struggle to describe how it feels sometimes because you've been growing up loving this tradition and getting insights into it. You know, I I didn't have Irish growing up, didn't it was it wasn't around me. I had to go and seek it out elsewhere. I saw it out in in Donegal, then in Galway. And the reason I went to Galway to college was because it was beside the Gales Act, and the Gales Act very much Kanamara Gale Tact was very present in UCG, given away my age at the time, but now it's the tur the tables have completely turned, and there the appetite for it is incredible, but not even that. The the people like you who are grown up in the Gales Act completely understand how valuable this gift you've been given is, and you know you're you're willing just to put it out there in your own way though, but you're putting your own stamp on it.
SPEAKER_02:That's the thing, and that is I'm glad you called it a gift because that is what it is, and we didn't realise that as young people for years. And I'm talking like till I was in my twenties, and I'm still in my twenties. So that's just showing how recent it was that I've realised how lucky we were. I thought everybody had channel singing in school or traditional musical lessons or that they spoke Irish at home. I genuinely thought as a child that was just something normal, and we never really felt too strongly about it because it was just something that we had. Um, as I moved outside the Gail and started going to college and started travelling the world and realizing how much our culture resonated with people, then I started to say, Wow, what we had at home is not the experience that everybody had, even in Ireland, and even like very close to home in Galway City or Galway County. Um so yeah, that that was eye-opening.
SPEAKER_01:And even within the Gail Tact, because there are different pockets of the Connemara Gale tact as well. So you you're going in micro, micro, micro here. Um, so you look at it as a body and you think, yeah, it's vastly rich, but there are different areas within the Connemara Gale tact. And you're from a very specific area, Kaiva, Karna. And I know just from going to college that that was that's like a real kind of homestead for Irish.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's a bit of a melting pot for the Chanos. Like Joe Ainu, who is one of the most well-known figures in Shanos, came from just two minutes down the road from where we went to national school and then.
SPEAKER_02:It's kind of like the Mecca of Shannon singing. All the great singers came from. Not where we're from Onard Wood, from Onard Here, which is about 20 minutes away.
SPEAKER_00:Um so his great grandniece then was our teacher in primary school. We got to learn from her, and we just had so many amazing mentors and people who were just had such wealth of Shanos. Uh, in the Mihalo Kuig, Kitiny Khan one, we had all of these people around us, and that's Disney with Hieranague. DC with Hier and that's yeah, that's Joey Joanne's um great grandniece. And we were just so lucky to have all of those people to pass on their knowledge to us, and um now that we're able to do the same.
SPEAKER_01:Um how aware would you have been of that though, whenever they were teaching you the songs at school? When you know you when you were teeny tiny, you wouldn't have understood that that heritage, would you?
SPEAKER_00:Not at all. They were just our teachers and our our mum's friends, and and all these people were coming to our house uh to to teach us these songs, and we didn't realise how lucky we lucky we were, but now we very much do looking back.
SPEAKER_01:There's but there's one thing, you know, having the tradition all around you and being exposed to it, and then there's having the talent that you have and you also your other brothers, you've you've two other brothers, Con and Lugus Ronan. Um you are all incredible singers. Like, and I would urge anyone listening today or watching on YouTube, please. If you have not heard the family sing together, the siblings sing together, go and seek it out on YouTube, particularly the version of Castle and Hook. I don't know my god. It's just it's spine-tanglingly just amazing, and you're just sitting around the kitchen table.
SPEAKER_02:I know.
SPEAKER_01:Like, can you remember the first time you sang that song together?
SPEAKER_02:Can't really, to be honest. It was always kind of second nature. Yeah, the two lads, we'd love to have the two lads with us, they're too expensive. Too expensive to have on the road. Um, no, but like that again, all this stuff was just very normal to us growing up. And I remember all about going to the flaws and erectus and stuff like that, and Mom would have us practicing, so I think they would be some of the earliest memories I have of actual structured singing, but we were always singing in the house or playing music. We always sing the two older brothers to thank for that as well. Accumul had started playing music um at five or six before we were even born.
SPEAKER_00:So as soon as we were brought into the house, there was just music all around us. We kind of had no choice, but we're so happy that we didn't have that choice to start and and to play. And um it's such a big thing for us in the family as well. Like, whenever the four of us do come together, it's like the first thing we do is go play music. I remember the first time our eldest brother Connell he went to America for a couple of months, and uh, whenever he'd come home, there'd be kind of a hello, and then we'd just take out the instruments and start singing and playing. It was kind of like a big celebration, so it's a huge part of it.
SPEAKER_02:I'll never forget as well the time coveted. I was over in New York and I came home and had to do my two weeks' quarantine in the house, and everybody was home. No way. And I remember hearing the tunes in the kitchen, and I was there going crazy in the room because I couldn't play with them. So I remember the first memory of coming out of the two weeks quarantine was yourself in Cumble playing tunes in the kitchen and actually being out of two, and I was like, ah, there it goes again. So it was always in the house. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's it and and it's it's great that you you brought us back to those dark times, but in a way, only for the pandemic, you might not have had the breakthrough that you had. You you have benefited from the the time that we all spent indoors and seeking out material and stuff on online. Couple of fockal andish oh locked are and for Krilte. Hatch on the Falls Road are proud sponsors of this week's music at Madden's. Hatch is nestled along the charming Falls Road. It's not just a cafe, it's a thriving hub of warmth and community, and most importantly, exceptional food and drink. I know I have tried it many times, and Hatch manages to capture the essence of Ireland while adding this lovely unique twist using locally sourced ingredients that support farmers and producers, and the commitment to quality is what sets them apart and elevates a classic breakfast, lunch, or dinner into a culinary experience. So, beyond the delectable food and coffee, Hatch on the Falls Road is also a community space. It's where friends meet, families gather, and good conversations flow as freely as the coffee. And the welcoming atmosphere just invites you to sit back and relax and indulge in a little slice of life. So I encourage you all, if you haven't already, to visit Hatch on the Falls Road. Treat yourself to the best coffee and an unforgettable Irish breakfast experience. The warmth of the staff who are always ready to greet you with a smile and a recommendation. Avalon Guitars are proud to sponsor music at Madden's, still made by hand, still made to matter. And Avalon Guitars began with a simple belief that the soul of an instrument is shaped by the hands that built it. And in the workshop in Newton Ards and County Down, tradition and intuition guide every cut, carve, and tap. There are no production lines, only Lutherans. And every single piece of wood is chosen with care, every guitar voiced individually, every detail considered, not just for beauty, but for balance and for resonance and for feel. And Avalon guitars are played on stages and in studios across the world, but they're born in the quiet where craftsmanship still matters, built to last, built to inspire, built to become part of your story. Avalonguitars.com for more details.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I hate to say it because it was such a miserable time for a lot of people, but it was one of the best things that happened to Coeve and I in terms of our music. Yeah. Like I was working with a different group on other projects at the time. Coever was still in secondary school. Um, she was one of the years that didn't have to do the leaving cert, so she was delighted in a way. But yeah, thrust us into a space where we started singing more and more together. Um and then from that came the time to experiment with harmony and arrangement of instruments and vocalization and that kind of stuff. And I know that that has been done, like we can't claim to be at all Kyon Rodi here for like Shano singing in a contemporary sense. You have the likes of Alton and Clannad and Scarlet Ray and um Leodon, people who were doing fantastic things for years before us that we would have looked up to. But in the Connemara Shannon's tradition, I think there was a serious and this is a good thing, I think, a serious kind of a purist approach to the Shannot's, which kept it alive for so long as well, because people are so dedicated to it. Um so we were very apprehensive at first with this whole approach to harmonisation. Um so just before Covid was or on Winch, we did for the Begley's and their Sheen Megliff show. Um and I remember arranging it for the first time. We sang it for Mom and Dad at home, and they were saying, That's gorgeous now, but are you sure that's what you're meant to be doing? And they were not in any way dissuading us, they were just putting it out there. And Cleve and I were like, Oh, not sure if that is the right thing to be doing. We did it anyway. That opened the door to get onto the FLA 2020 programme where we did Eleanor on the Rome, and then from then on it's just been doors opening and I remember that's where I first discovered is was on Schlina Megliach, and it was in lockdown.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I just thought this is just remarkable, and it was because you know they had travelled to Brendan and Cormac had travelled to you know the one of the most furthest western parts of Connemara and found an absolute diamond, like Shaw De Vionov, um when you and then when you started singing, and then again it's it's back to the Scarabray model because it's the siblings singing together, you know, and I like you say in your way putting Connemara on the map as well. Um har that harmonising, and you you know, Shams just said there, Kiva, that it just happened so naturally. You know, do how do you find your part, your way? Did did you have to sit down and work it out, or did it just Yeah?
SPEAKER_00:So we were lucky that in school and growing up we did a lot of choir singing, so I think that's what kind of introduced us to the harmonies and stuff, and then we decided to add it into the channel singing as well when we had the time. Um, but what we really like to do is try and tell the story of the channel songs with the harmony. Um so for people who don't speak the language and um who kind of aren't used to the channel songs, uh we like to kind of use the harmony as a way to highlight those emotions and the peak points in the songs. Um so that's kind of the process that we try and that we try and do.
SPEAKER_02:There's a mix of it. Like we're very lucky that innately as young people we were very natural to harmony, given that we had music in the family for generations before us, like channel singing goes back to our great-granduncles and further than them, but they were very well known composers, Valvertl and Michel Vertel, I don't know who. Um so that we had a kind of a natural ability for it, thanks to our lineage, but also um the the fact that we're siblings really helps in blending and mixing and intuition and kind of feeling where the person's going to go. So there is a tiny bit of structure sometimes when we have to, like especially if we're doing something that we really want to get right, and there'll be a bit of that's not quite right, we'll try it again. But a lot of it is just feeling it out and feeling how the synergy between the two voices resonates, and if it's kind of zealish going on, if it's true to the song and the messages that you're trying to convey. Um so a lot of it is luck, like the fact that we're siblings is a huge, huge help.
SPEAKER_01:It helps a lot, yeah. I I'm just getting goosebumps even listening to you describe it as such, um, because it adds to the the power of what you're doing that it is just so intuitive, and we will hear an example shortly, um because Seamus and Kiva are going to sing a song for us a little bit later on, and that's just that markdown as well. So we'll make sure they're not they'll not forget about that. Um I did want to ask because I saw Schleu Nimeglia, that's where I saw you first, and then went and did a bit of digging uh around YouTube, and then I came across these videos of Clewan Culterha Hanamara Lar. Um which came first? So that is actually really So Clewan Culterha, how would I translate that? Like a the cultural um Clean Like a for baby. Yeah, like a the cot, the net kind of yeah, like a god yeah, Cleveland.
SPEAKER_02:I don't actually know the English word.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, neither do I. It's it's a differ it's a difficult one to translate. But it it it it seemed like it was uh it's a it's a group and they were getting people um locals who were talented to basically like a talent show on on YouTube, yeah, where you just basically started the camera rolling and gave things a go. And I heard you singing She the Wamai. Yeah, you know, wasn't surprised to hear that one coming you know from from uh from Kanamara singers. Um but what what was that? What was the the purpose of Cle uh Cleo and Culture Kanamara Larry? They're always tapp obviously tapping into um a rich uh well of musicians in in the area.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and that's the thing. That was again during one of the lockdowns, I think it was one of the 2021 lockdowns, and I was actually very, very fortunate after that to work in the office with Connamara Laure. They were fantastic um Planalitanga, so um language promoters and planners to help the language in the in the area. Um so and and and Una and Maudine were fantastic during the time um of COVID, kind of thinking about all these initiatives to keep cultural practices going. So I know that they had some online cardlons um for different like basket making and stuff like that. They've done loads, but one of them was this Cleve on Cultura, and it just gave a spotlight to all the fantastic um established musicians, I suppose, and then upcoming musicians like ourselves and other um musicians around the area to keep going. And it was just fantastic because it allowed musicians who got their kind of draw and their s kind of social outlets from music, create music at home and then see what other people were doing. It was like being at a concert from your own home. Um, so that was brilliant. And yeah, we started roping Ronan or other brother into things at that stage as well. And yeah, I think Ronan got roped into a latch during Cold of the Poor Fella because he couldn't escape. He's the banjo player, yeah. And he's also a great singer as well.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I noticed as well though from those videos, um it it seemed to me that it was an opportunity for you as well to test out your your stage presence, to test out what you do as musicians, you know, because it's one thing performing the music and you know, getting all that right, but there's also an element when you come to stage, it changes the dynamic a wee bit. Yeah, did you did you learn a lot from taking part in that? You had to put yourself out there a wee bit.
SPEAKER_00:For sure, and it's weird because for me, I was in secondary school when lockdown happened, so I didn't have a lot of stage experience at all, only for like school shows and stuff. So the online concerts were my first kind of putting myself out there experiences. So I found the transition from that to going onto stage in front of real people to be really, really scary. Yeah, um, because before it was just my phone, and I knew there were people behind the phone, but I couldn't see them, so it didn't matter. And then my first gig back, I remember just being like, I uh can't do this, like this is so scary. Um, but then you got that lovely warm reaction from the audience and the the applause after you finished and stuff, and it actually made it even better to be on stage and to kind of be playing to real people with real reactions and and and watching them react as well.
SPEAKER_01:It was actually I way perverted to that and also the connection I think with audiences who like I said to you in the introduction there, you know, it's heart wrenching one moment, it's heart warming the next, and that emotion comes across in a live context, doesn't it, when the people are uh you know in a in an audience in front of you. A couple of focalinish o' luck or shakten you shaw air music at madens. Uh some words from our sponsors this week on the podcast, and uh they say there's music in every pint. Smithics has been brewed in Kilkenny since 1710, it carries centuries of craft, a ruby red ale with notes of caramel, roasted malt, poured smooth and rich, and it's the taste that's been part of our sessions for generations, where stories are told and music is made. So whether you're at Madden's or listening from home, raise a glass and let the tradition play on. SmithX is brewed true and shared together, and please drink responsibly for over eighteens only.
SPEAKER_02:You need that, you need that human connection when you're performing, I think. Like it was really strange, like we have said. Luckily, I had had a few years performing before COVID. Um, but for you it's it was really jarring because you had to go from performing to a phone to real people. I know it was tough to go the other way for people to be performing to audiences and then go back online, so everybody struggled with it. But uh we didn't realise how much people were resonating with the music. We got we're getting Facebook comments and people saying, Oh, I love this and all that kind of crack, but it's not human. Whereas when you can feel them in the room, feeling your emotions, or like if we were singing Anach Koon that they could feel how heavy it was, or if we're singing a love song, they could feel the depth of that. You can you can feel that energy in the room, and that's a hugely important part of what we do as well. Um I I miss that.
SPEAKER_00:The audience kind of feeds us as much as we're trying to give back to them as well. Yeah, it's really interesting.
SPEAKER_01:I'm glad you mentioned Anach Kuhn because that was a moment from those lockdown years when you performed that on the Late Late show, and it was also the the reason you were you were performing it uh was um in in memory of Ashley Murphy, so it was extremely sad. Um but also it was just that that sense of here's our language, this is it all, stripped back. You know, you can dress things up as much as you want, but when you strip it all back, there's so much power in what we have that we don't even appreciate it by times. But in that moment, you brought you brought the whole country together because like the social media exploded with reaction to the song, to you two singing, the language, and also you know, there was the extra um resonance of why you you were singing that particular song. I wanted you to just tell me uh about the song first of all, because uh you said it's a you know it's it's very powerful. It's a lament from East Galway.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, it is indeed from a place called Anna Down, and it um was penned by Rafferty, um, I believe. Um the music and the lyrics, I'm not sure if they came together at the one time, but the the poetry was was Rafferty and um tells the story of an awful boating accident which killed and I always get this figure wrong, um just really about a number. I think it's between nine or nine or ten people passed in a boating tragedy where they were transporting livestock across um the Corib, and um a sheep put their foot down through the boat and there was all chaos and and unfortunately lives lost and in a drowning. And this song was a way for people to deal with. I think that's what is really important to know about Chano singing, like it's not industry music. It wasn't composed to be popular, or it wasn't composed to sound good, or to appeal to people uh uh in a kind of a superficial way. It was always a coping mechanism or a way to mark an event. It was real very much uh music of the people. So that that an was used to cope with and to record the absolute devastation and tragedy that people were feeling at the loss of life in the locality of Anadown. And um I think that's why it resonates so much um at the time in 2022, and when poor Ashing passed God Restor, um an awful, just an absolutely devastating um loss as well. And I think people felt that. They felt the humanity of the song, um, they felt the immense emotion that was recorded, and I think people connected with that really deep root of shamus or the Irish language that has gone back for centuries. It's it was a way for people to deal with emotion, it was a way for people to come together and channel their those feelings that they couldn't verbalise.
SPEAKER_01:Even though you delivered it in the Irish language, which is a language that is still a minority in the country, it it it still it shows you, I thought it showed me that it's in us all. If you go deep enough, it's it's in every single person because they connected to something that was written hundreds of years ago. And the human emotion was still there despite the song being uh so old. And you know, I think that's the thing too. You know, you're you say there about uh the responsibility of bringing these songs to new listeners, to new audiences. You know, does it surprise you that uh that people are connecting so much with the language when you sing it in its truest form?
SPEAKER_00:Like what what do you think it is?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, 100% it surprises me because I always believed the Irish language was something that had to exist in a guy of the area. But you know, for it to be understood, for it to be spoken. For a Shanos, I always believed that it it existed in Connemara and in um Dangelhouche and in Guidot and like different Guiltha theories, and outside that shano singing was never going to be received. That's that's always what I thought. I thought it was something that we had for ourselves, um, and people could come in and observe it and then leave, and then that was it. But the fact that people are so interested in the Irish language and in traditional music and shano singing outside of the Guyfot theories now, and not even just in Ireland, like Harlow as well abroad. We've performed in Germany and France and Canada and America, and people are connecting with this language that they don't understand at all, but they feel the emotion still, and that has to do with I think of how true an art form it is. Like it's also very difficult because yes, we're surprised, but it's not really us that is impressing people, it's not really us that people are connecting with, it's the tradition, and we're very much vessels for the tradition, and that's why it's owned by the body.
SPEAKER_01:We're very modest. No, it's a bit of both. I know I don't want it sound pretentious now, it's not the same. No, you're not, you're not no no no.
SPEAKER_02:That's not what I mean at all. I just mean it's it's such a rich and powerful tradition that exists through the people that that speak the language, you know, it exists because of the people who keep it alive, but it's it's very much the Shannon's singing tradition in and of itself that people connect with, not the singers that are delivering it. That's my outlook on it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, what what's yours, Kiva? Yeah, a very similar thing, and um I think as well that some people might feel like because we're from Connemara and because people in the Gaeltucht they feel that you have to be from the Gaeltucht to connect with these things as well, with the language and with the tradition. Um, but what me and Sheamus always like to say is that the language and the tradition belongs to everyone. Uh, everyone uh is welcome to engage with the language and engage with the Shanos, even if they haven't had it grown up, if they didn't grow up with it in their house, it's it still belongs to them as much as it belongs to us, and we'd encourage anyone who has any interest in engaging with it to do so. Um and there's so many lovely uh kind of ways to do that. There's so many ways of following people on social media, like Moni Cherine has great like uh language TikToks and song TikToks, and there's just so many ways to engage with it. Exactly. Everyone needs a best of grey luck in their lives, but there's so many ways to engage with it uh these days on social media and in Carolinney and Ghulhart Martin. So uh that's that's what we like to say the most.
SPEAKER_02:I'd I feel like I don't have good enough Irish. I don't I kind of get disappointed that people view it as a skill. Um and I know that's I look, I learnt German in in college as well, and I realise how daunting it is to speak German to a German nature. Really, really daunting. But I just would love if people saw the language all over Ireland, and anyone who wants to engage with, like you said, from further afield, if they just saw it as something that belonged to them and that they can engage with it to whatever level they want, and not to be afraid to use just a few words, and if you make a grammar mistake, that's grand. Take the kind of correction or learn from your mistakes and move on, but don't be trying to get to a level where you have to be completely fluent to use it because you don't need to be. Nobody needs to be afraid of it.
SPEAKER_01:And you're missing out if you do it that if you do that too, aren't you? You're missing out on on so much because it just brings it it brings things to another level that that sense of connection, and also I love that you know you're talking in terms of outside Connemara and that you know there's a there's a bigger network, I suppose, of right over the country and internationally. And I know your work with Blanahoiga, which was an amazing project on TG Cahar. So the idea, whoever came up with that idea is a genius.
SPEAKER_03:I know.
SPEAKER_01:The genesis was to take uh up-and-coming singers from all over the island who spoke Irish, didn't have to be from an Irish-speaking area, a Gail tact, but just if they could sing, if they could play music, whatever, and brought you together is this incredible collective. And everywhere was represented. Am I right in saying everybody every like more or less every area of the country was represented? Nearly everywhere.
SPEAKER_02:I think the only county in Guelphs that we didn't have were Cork. Um, so we had we had Munster, uh Leinster, Ulster, and Connot all represented. And we've made literally friends for life out of that group. So there's there's some of our best friends now out of that group of one voice.
SPEAKER_01:The power of you all performing together is just out of this world, and then learning from each other about the different songs from different areas. Like, and I'm gonna mention Pierce's Sean Goa and the power of the harmonies there. Like, you know, I've got a um almost six-year-old at home who can't stop singing that but our daddy's from the area where that would have been sung originally, and we're explaining to her there's a good chance your ancestors might have sang that song, and the power of that connection with the song is just incredible. So, what was it like for you to learn about traditions from other parts of the country?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, hugely educational, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_00:So amazing, yeah. Like, but even like on the the the first the basic level, even like the the that everyone had was so different. I remember chatting to Kahalo Kara on the first few days, and I didn't know what he was saying. Like he'd ask me a question, I'd be like, subtitles, subtitles, please. But now it's great. Like after three or four days, it's great. Like, and now I talk to Carl all the time, and I understand what he's saying all the time, so it's great. But on that level, even it was so cool.
SPEAKER_02:We just have to say, like, huge thank you to Sheila Denver and Anyer TV and Colomakanura for coming in as mentors and making this happen because it wouldn't have happened without them. It was hugely educational on multiple levels. Like there is this kind of nos, there's this get a no somewhere, um, like tendency to kind of stick with your own area when it comes to Shannon's songs. So, like, yeah, if you're from Colamara, sing the Kolamara songs. If you're from Guidor, sing the Guaidor songs. This was huge in breaking down those barriers and allowing us to actually sing songs from other Gelto regions that we might have been timid to before. I know that sounds really silly because we're all the one island and it's all the one language, but you very much have songs that belong to your area. So it gave us huge access to other stores, other repertoires of songs from other Gretch regions.
SPEAKER_01:It's much richer. I like I remember even choosing to go to university and I was going to go to Colrain and then I decided not to go to Colrain because if I went there I would know everybody already because you know the Irish language community is small. I wanted to study Irish at college, and someone said to me, Why don't you go to Galway? Proximity to the Gail talked, all the rest of it. First lecture, Garouge Denver, Hello Yarroge, Hulshesha, Lorsha Gaelic near Hegma Fokel a doce. He opened his mouth, started speaking. I thought I was a great Irish speaker going down to Galway. Not one word of the come out of the man's mouth did I understand. It was I was like, Oh my gosh, what have I done? I have made such a massive mistake. But like yourself with Kenhal, that was only just tune in my ear. I had to tune the ear, and then I I was actually quiet, I think, for a bit of a year. Everyone thought I was from Connemara because I didn't talk. And then when I opened my mouth, they were like, What? You're a northerner?
SPEAKER_03:What?
SPEAKER_01:Um, but I understand all the dialects now because of that experience, and it makes it so much richer. And then there's a curiosity that comes with that as well, because you want to know more.
SPEAKER_02:100% we'd have missed out on absolute gems of songs only for that. Like like Shanghou, that's like a an oranthora um awake song or a funeral song that they sing to keep people involved, and it was sang in a round over like multiple verses, and people would compose verses to keep it going in order to keep the funeral going and keep the body um uh accompanied, I suppose. Keep people awake as well than overnight. Exactly. Like we'd never would have known about that tradition of singing or that particular song only for this project, and only for we were able to engage with or on this Kanther Iritel. So um I I it was huge educational. It was four days, a full album of music, uh, I don't know how many part TV series, and it was just like the most amazing coming together of music. I remember coming out of it and saying, I can't believe that happened. Yeah. Do you know that they pulled that off and that we had created so much in such a short space of time. It honestly was one of the most remote.
SPEAKER_01:And I saw you were on your travels during the summer as well, so we're not done. There are a bit more to come.
SPEAKER_00:More to come, more to come, yeah. We got to go to L'Oreal. Um, Shane was actually unfortunately missed out on the trip, but I got to go to L'Oreal with the group and it was just amazing. Some new songs as well that we've done, and um some new compositions from May of Niveglich as well. I just want to mention those as well. The ones from the first album, um, was just our anthem. It's become our anthem. We always finish on it every show.
SPEAKER_02:It's like it's become a lot of people's anthems. Like we saw the protest there, Son the Gaelge in Dublin the other day, and they were singing it loud and proud.
SPEAKER_00:And yeah, it's just it's just exactly what we're all about. That just if you want to listen to one song from Blonde Hoyge, that's the one I'd recommend too because it just represents all that we stand for and all that we're about.
SPEAKER_02:It's so important that there are people composing in Irish still. Because you know, when you think of Chanos as a tradition, it's the old style. And the old style is great, but you're wondering like when that ends, like what what the point is when you're talking about. The likes of Maeve are so so important in Irish singing at the moment that she's composing songs in the tradition and in the style. Um so I just wanted to say that because I always forget to say that.
SPEAKER_01:Fantastic. No, you and you're absolutely right, but it it it it seems now that people are becoming more confident in their ability to do that, and they are you know, radiant chitanish, uh arduo, trivan the gaelig, nia marla, I guess ain't a katashishin, um I guess or in the reason, or oran donegal or fad, food fad nachira. Um it could keep you talking all day. This is just amazing. But uh briefly just wanted to chat about the um so people you know want to hear recordings from you, so you did make an EP, that version of Blackbird. Like you do so you sing in English as well. We do. Um how did you come up with that that arrangement?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so we were really lucky to get to work with Brian Whelan, um, who's our producer, and uh Bill Wheelan, composer of River Dance, as well, during that EP process. And we went in kind of to the studio wanting to find our sound, so we knew that we loved doing the channel songs in harmony and doing the arrangements on those. That's what we love to do, it's what we still love to do, and we're really comfortable doing. But we also wanted to kind of broaden our horizons a little bit and see what else we could do. Um, so Bill kind of encouraged us to take a look at some songs we would have listened to growing up, and we were huge Beatles fans growing up, so Blackbird was kind of a no-brainer. We just yeah, a bit rough, but um it was a no-brainer to go for that. It's just uh a gorgeous song and a really timeless song as well. I think it can it just has lasted through the ages really well.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but you've also brought it down your generation. Can I put them through your your interpretation of it? And I think that's you know, that's really refreshing as well. I think the Beatles would be okay with it. I hope so.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I I was always wondering like would would they appreciate the dunno the day doodle at Star Trek? I'm not sure. But we we thought I found that really important to add to it as well because Portrach Bale is another oral tradition in Irish, um the Irish tradition that is hugely, hugely significant in that probably preceded instruments, you know, people used to make multi music before anything else, but also just the significance of its linguistic kind of rebellion aspect as well. Do you know when um instruments and stuff in Irish language and Irish singing would have been free hush like it was forbidden, um a lot of them would have been preserved through um a lot of the melodies and songs would have been preserved through mouth music. So when we were thinking about Blackbird and how to make it kind of gail, how to make it fit with our other repertoire and other music that was going to be on the album, it was something daft. It just came to us at home at one stage and we started lilting, and I remember going to the studio, I was like, Oh, this is oh, I don't know what they're going to say to this. We did it anyway, and they thought it was great. And people have just really connected with it, which is great as well.
SPEAKER_01:How how do you turn that volume down on what are they going to say in order to do what feels true to you? That must be difficult with you because you know, you know how popular you are, you know you're connecting with audiences, you know there's an expectation on you in terms of recording, yeah, and you have to strike that balance somehow. So, how how have you gone about trying to do that so far?
SPEAKER_00:It's something that we're still kind of trying to work on, isn't it? That that voice in your head that's kind of telling you that everything's wrong and and all that stuff. It's it's something that we're still trying to learn because we're we're still kind of new to this whole thing, if you think about it. In the grand scheme of things. Um in the grand scheme of things. But I suppose we have great kind of family and friends at home that we can trust, and we always bring things to them first. There's a certain few people that get to hear everything first, and we know that we bring it to the board. And we we know that they'll tell us uh exactly if it's if it's something that we should move forward with, and they'll tell us what to fix. And um and we do know ourselves as well, kind of deep down. We we we like to have conversations with each other and be really honest with each other, and um yeah, we felt the weight at the start with pushing the boat with our shano songs and the harmony and stuff.
SPEAKER_02:We felt the weight then. I think we're always you're always going to feel the weight as a creator or as an artist, you know. You have to be comfortable in pushing boundaries and realising if people don't resonate with it, that's grand. It might be something that you keep to yourself and you practice in your own time. And yeah, there is that expectation, and I always do get a bit like, oh, if we do anything that's too kind of far afield from what we do normally, are people going to like it? Um we're actually creating new music at the moment or recording new tracks and stuff like that, and it's always a concern, you know, are people going to like it? But I think you have to listen to yourself first and foremost, stay true to what you feel is good and like your your own message, that what you're trying to portray or convey. Um I think if you do that.
SPEAKER_00:As long as you're doing that, like our main thing is that we want to preserve the tradition and preserve Shanos, and as long as we're still doing that, I think we we'll always enjoy what we're doing, and I think that's the main thing.
SPEAKER_01:Offer sure matters, yeah. Such ambassadors and such champions, no, but you the your work you're doing is just astounding, it's brilliant. Long may it continue. Um what's it like working with the the family though? What's what what is it like being in the family business though?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so this is the thing, this is the question.
SPEAKER_01:You're saying they're about honesty, you know. I know, do we can say things honestly? Sometimes we can be a bit do you really be honest?
SPEAKER_02:Are we under oath here?
SPEAKER_01:Sometimes we can be a bit treat this as a confessional.
SPEAKER_00:We get everything out now.
SPEAKER_02:I know, look, it's it's got its ups and downs for sure. Um like we're very fortunate, first and foremost, that we are a family, we're always in close proximity, rehearsals are very easy. You skip that no, sometimes to Kweva's detriment, you skip the social barrier. Do you know? Sometimes when you're working with other people, you have to kind of phrase things less blunt, and there's a kind of a social and linguistic dance that you have to do around to save face and not insult anyone. I tend to take that to the extreme and just get straight.
SPEAKER_00:That barrier doesn't exist. We will put it that way.
SPEAKER_02:So I find that very beneficial, some sometimes to the point where I'm probably too blunt when it comes for under time pressure or anything like that. Exactly. Would you have that, you know, you'd be able to do that. So are you the mediator then, Kay?
SPEAKER_00:Uh try to be. I do try and be, but no, it's great because like Seamus has a a process and like he needs to do it kind of quickly. If he's thinking of something, it needs to come out. So uh it just needs to come out in any way that it does come out. But it's great because that makes Seamus is the brains behind a lot of our arrangements. So like that's the way that's the way it works, and and it works for us now. And when we started off, like we were siblings, we were like I was his little sister, we were always kind of button heads, but I think over time we've just we know what we're both focused on, we know what we want to do, and it's just become a lot easier and we've matured a lot as well. So we get on a lot better now that we've got to be.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but it is important to be honest in saying, like it is really difficult working with family, especially if you have high pressure situations. We're very lucky at the moment that we've not had anything too high pressure. We're very lucky that we have loads going on and it's all very feel-good. But yeah, there are stuff that we're more ho high-profile gigs or stuff that's going out on telly, and you know that it needs to be right. So, yeah, it's easier to butt heads with your siblings because that barrier I mentioned earlier on is not there. Um, but I think altogether we're we're not doing too bad.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and because we're siblings, we all just everything we get over it, and it's it's like normal siblings. Like you have your fights and you have your button heads, but you always just come back to being siblings in the end.
SPEAKER_02:So it's if you have a common goal and a common message that you want to deliver it makes it easier.
SPEAKER_01:And the fact that you're siblings is the that's where the goal is in this, because that's where the you know that's the magic is as well in everything that you're doing, the synergy, the intuition, and everything that you're doing. Grimila me lamaic of a civilian uh music at Madden's woman, urch and such as uh a cora in you I guess Maheam Gme and Darna Kora, I guess in Shihukora, I was in Karu Kora. No no much cricket and no much way.
SPEAKER_02:Just getting started.
SPEAKER_01:Just getting started.