Tonight's the night!
7pm, across @ionadculturtha and @MusNetIrl platforms, and on YouTube the online premier of our new body of work, created during the #resonate residency in Baile Mhúirne, Co. Cork
Watch it here:
Profile photos: Con Kelleher
As you may know I did a residency in the Ionad san Gaeltacht Mhúscraí in Cork ❤ it was enriching, educating, energising, and I came away with a beautiful new collection of songs. Over the course of 10 immersive on-site days, we explored the local history and mythology of
Gaeltacht Mhúscraí focusing on Baile Mhúirne's beloved goddess and saint Gobnait, and the curse of the "cold, long and masculine" River Sullane that runs through the town. These works, a celebration of local history and folklore, are a fusion of past and present styles of
music and music-making, incorporating the Irish language.
This new music was created as part of the RESONATE residency by Music Network in conjunction with the Ionad Cultúrtha with support from @artscouncil_ie
It was a joy to share these past few months with my friends Hannah and Alec. Challenging at times finding our middle ground, figuring out where we all fit, getting the wheels turning and finding that flow state where we were all just creating new sounds and bouncing ideas and
watching them rebound into the ether...
Anyway, we finished there on the 6th of November with a performance of the new works in front of an audience of locals and visitors, but before the performance we sat with our in-house engineers and recorded the pieces especially for you.
Watch them on the @MusNetIrl and @ionadculturtha social media channels at 7pm, or on this YouTube link here:
Walking around Baile Mhúirne in our first few days during the residency, we were struck by the powerful opposing presences of Gobnait and of the Súlán.
The Súlán, the only masculine river in the country, carries with it a fatalistic curse
It's said it claims a life every seven years. On a bridge, on the walk to Gobnait's Well, is a stone plinth that reads "mise an Súlán, fuar, fada, fireann. Anois an t-am, cá bhfuil an duine?" "I am the Sullane, cold long and masculine. Now is the time, where is the person?"
Eerie. Gobnait, in contrast, is a healing, forgiving presence.
I wanted to write something around generational guilt & shame, the kind inherited by many Irish people. In Crónán Na mBeach, co-written by @Hannahpianah, a girl wakes from a nightmare where the Súlán called to her.