They will be releasing their second album this April, in the middle of the month: ‘Evelyn and Dec’. It’s not (yet) a household name but could become one. When their first album, ‘Make for Joy’, was released on Leap Day in 2024, it was named Album of the Week at RTÉ Radio 1. “Their voices are the most idyllic combination,” wrote TradFest (Dublin) last January when they were featured at the festival. 

‘Dec’ is short for a name that will ring a bell for quite a few people: Declan Sinnott. An acclaimed guitarist who worked with Christy Moore for well over 30 years, from the early 1980s until lockdown. He played acoustic, electric and Spanish guitars, violin and provided vocals on Moore’s iconic ‘Ride On’ album (1984) and produced four-and-a-half of his albums. 

He also worked with Mary Black for 13 years, from 1982 onwards, both as a guitarist and as her producer. Both of these working relationships have come to an end but not in a dramatic way at all, he says during the West Cork People interview. “They were very long collaborations. With Mary Black, I played all the gigs, was her producer, suggested a lot of the songs, and came up with the idea of using only Irish songwriters. I suppose I determined the direction to a large extent. With Christy Moore, although here, too, I was playing all the gigs. I didn’t have as much influence. Christie is very much his own man and I would be trying to steer him towards things that I thought might be good for him to do. However, mostly he would just do whatever he wanted to and I’d go along with it.”

Sinnott (born in Wexford, now resident in Bandon) was one of the original members of Horslips, otherwise known as “the Founding Fathers of Celtic Rock” according to Irish Music Daily. The blog also reveals that three of the core members, including Eamon Carr and Barry Devlin, arrived at the idea of forming a band, in 1970, after they had posed as a ‘fake band’ for an advert (for Harp Lager). They then invited Declan Sinnott and spent two years practising and performing before turning professional. Ironically, he left Horslips soon afterwards when it again appeared in an advert (for Mirinda orange juice), which annoyed him. Nine years later, he was asked by two other luminaries of the Irish music scene, Christy Moore and Dónal Lunny, to join what became the Celtic Rock band Moving Hearts before earning further ‘stripes’ in Irish musical history, as he started to work with Mary Black. During the period he was her producer, guitarist and musical director she went from strength to strength in her career. Two platinum-selling solo albums, plenty of plaudits, sell-out tours, international success (in Europe, the US, Japan). He also collaborated with her sister Frances Black, a prominent singer herself and, since 2016, a proactive ‘seanadóir’.

 The list of people that Declan has formed musical partnerships with over the years (he’s now 75) is long and impressive. As to the main ones, apart from the aforementioned singers, there’s John (Spillane), Niamh (Murphy), Hank (Wedel), Victoria (Keating), Sinead (Lohan), Jessie (Whitehead), Owen (O’Brien). 

And now there is Evelyn (Kallansee). Born on Curaçao, an island and former Spanish and Dutch colony off the coast of Venezuela, she grew up in a midsize town in North Holland. Evelyn sang in large musical and theatre productions such as Les Misérables and Evita, was a backing vocalist for well-known Dutch and international singers, acted in TV-series, and fronted Tristan, an acid jazz band that became popular in Japan and the UK.  

So how did she end up in Ireland?

“My in-laws would always go here on walking holidays and brought back beautiful photographs. After about 15 years of them trekking all over Ireland, my husband and I decided to check it out, went to Kerry and really fell in love with the place. And in 2011 we bought a house on the Beara Peninsula. At that time I stated, on a whim, that we’d move to Ireland in 2020. A nice round number and I would turn 50 in that year so it became our goal. And then we arrived two days before lockdown. That changed everything. Before coming to Ireland, I thought: I’ve had my career and done so many things, it’s okay, I’ll just start singing in pubs. Of course, they all closed down. And then I met Declan. He was such a joy to work with.”

Sinnott: “I was recording with another musician called Hank Wedel. He wanted harmonies on two tracks. When he discovered that Evelyn was in the country, he asked her to come and sing. When I heard her, a light bulb went on in my head and I thought, that’s very interesting. Not just the sound of her voice. Equally, her efficiency and professionalism.”

Evelyn: “I also work as a breath-work coach and do meditation for a Dutch company, the ‘I AM’ Academy. They had commissioned me to write a song for them but I’d just arrived in Ireland I had no idea who to do it with. When I met Declan I knew I had to try it with him.” The song, ‘Love Light’, became one of the 11 songs on Make for Joy, available on Bandcamp. Their second CD, Wait Up, will be launched and presented in April (see below for details). 

A lot of their songs seem to come about organically or should that be intuitively? 

Evelyn: “There is no fixed formula.”

Declan: “For the song called Wait Up, I put down a drum groove. Then Evelyn went to the microphone as I picked up an electric guitar. We just improvised and what we created added up to a well-rounded song. It was the first time we worked like that.”

Their music is very comfortable and reassuring. What stands out are the strong melody lines, the harmonies, Evelyn’s voice. And there is no doubt that whatever string and other sounds Declan produces, they are world class. A balm for the nervous system.

www.evelynanddec.com

Concerts:

April 24, St. John’s Theatre, Listowel

April 25, St. Patrick’s Church, Kenmare

April 26, Sarah Walker Gallery, Castletownbere

West Cork seems to have its own ‘musical ecosystem’. Musicians playing in each others’ – often intersecting – bands. Gigs aplenty. In most genres under the (not very present) sun: Blues, trad, rock, world music, jazz, country, post-punk, alternative, classical. And yes, reggae. Music with a strongly accented sub-beat, originating in Jamaica, that evolved in the late 1960s. Most notably played by two bands in West Cork that partly overlap: Mango Moon and the West Cork Dub Collective.

Mango Moon started with a casual conversation in 2021, as Caz Jeffreys said to Kate Liddell, “Wouldn’t it be cool to have a reggae club in Ballydehob? Next I got five of us together for a reggae jam.” Soon afterwards, Mango Moon’s original line-up featuring Caz (vocals, electric guitar), Kate (trumpet, fiddle, vocals), Jane Goss (sax, vocals), Greg Woods (bass), Patrick Healy (rhythm guitar), Ben Crockett (drums) expanded as with the Mexican percussionist, Armando Ramirez, joined them.

According to Caz, “My initial idea was to create a kind of club in the basement of Oasis Arts Café in Ballydehob, also for other musicians, but, within weeks, we were invited to play a gig. And lead guitarist Rik Appleby came on board. We became a band very quickly, were building up more songs, gigging. Until Greg, our bass player, fell sick. Sadly, he passed away in early 2024. For a while, I didn’t know if I wanted to carry on but eventually we continued as a seven-piece. Rik transitioned to bass. And since February this year we’re on our third drummer, the brilliant Steven O’Connell.” Apart from reggae – “our backbone” – the band plays ska (a forerunner of reggae) and dub.

In the beginning, Caz Jeffreys supplied all the original material. “Roughly 50 per cent is still mine, the rest are covers. Jane has also written songs while she and Kate often write their own parts so we’re increasingly co-creating.” A party piece is the instrumental Swing Easy, recorded in the 1960s by the Skatalites, a band consisting of the musicians behind many of Jamaica’s hit records. “Swing Easy gets everyone going,” says Caz. “Some people keep dancing all night. It’s so great to connect with the audience in this way. And, the same people come back time and again. It’s like a community.” A word that is frequently used to describe Mango Moon’s musicians’ external activities. Some have MAs in community music (or music theory). Jane Goss conducts community choirs in Dunmanway and Castletownbere. Caz Jeffreys used to lead numerous community choirs (not to mention community bands, even a community musical) but is now creating music installations for community involvement and has set up Creative Voice Projects for fairly experienced female singers. “We don’t just learn great songs and complicated harmonies but also look into what has held us back from doing what we want to do or feeling confident about performing. These are eye-opening and moving conversations, which are now inspiring newly written songs.” Meanwhile, Kate Liddell has embarked on a solo performance project involving a loop pedal, vocals, and multiple instruments.

Last summer Patrick Healy, Rik Appleby, Armando Ramirez and then-drummer Fergal Lee set up the West Cork Dub Collective while continuing to play with Mango Moon. They rehearsed twice. “We chose rhythms from 70s and 80s classic dub tunes alongside chords and a bass line. That’s always our springboard.” So far, they have been doing gigs every four weeks, currently  in Ár n-Áit in Skibbereen on the first Saturday of the month. And every performance is different. The main ingredient, apart from those chords, rhythms, bass lines, is slightly mysterious: dub. 

“Dub started back in Jamaica when reggae was evolving,” shares Rik. “The music producers would record reggae singers and create their own mix based on that recording. And then another version, as they removed a lot of vocals while adding loads of effects. The end result was an instrumental that focused on the rhythm section. A production idea that turned into a style.”

“It was the art of using the studio and/or the mixing console as an instrument,” adds Patrick. “As part of the band. It’s about space and the creative manipulation of sound. Dub is certainly heavier than reggae, with prominent bass and drums while echoes and extra reverb are thrown in. We are also creating those effects, live.”

 Different guest musicians are invited for each Dub Collective gig. So whereas the musical points of departure are always the same, improvisation is the norm so the outcome cannot be predicted. It could be a danceable, vibrating wall of sound dominated by heavy guitar sounds or something entirely different involving a lyrical silver flute, baritone sax, vocals. 

Rik says the band are “working on some recordings from our October gig when the Grammy-Award winning guitarist Niwel Tsumbu, Congolese-born and Ireland-based, was playing with us, as well as Julia Cross on flute and vocals. The sound just took off into areas that were completely unplanned and exploratory and new. Nobody had any idea what was going to happen and it went to really interesting places.”

Their dedication to reggae goes far, has deep roots, and started early. “In Donegal we have the annual community-based Mary from Dungloe International Arts Festival,” says Patrick. “When I was five, my parents brought me along to listen to the Century Steel Band, an Irish reggae-outfit. My dad mentioned to me recently, “It’s no wonder you love reggae so much because you were dancing away when that band was playing.”

Rio’s grandmother lived in a flat in Hackney. “When I was very young, some Rastas lived next door to her. You could hear their reggae through the walls, especially the bass and drums. My nan called it jungle music but as a child I found it deliciously exotic. In my late teens I realised it was something that I could play quite easily as I had a feel for it. I would listen to the sound systems in London. Really heavy dub and very heavy bass. The effect is physical; almost like a physical meditation. You can feel your body vibrating in sync with the music.”

“Maybe reggae is so attractive because it can slow things down,” says Patrick. “Pace the breathing. In our busy, hectic world that steadiness is really appealing.”

West Cork Dub Collective plays Ár n-Áit in Skibbereen on March 7.

DMac Burns and Mango Moon play Connolly’s of Leap on March 16.

Caz Jeffreys runs Creative Voice Projects in the Ludgate Hub (Skibbereen) and at Civic Trust House (Cork).

Mamacha (with Kate Liddell and Armando Ramirez) plays Levis Corner House on April 12. 

Patrick Healy puts his music on Bandcamp as Emerald Lion (a collaboration with Mark Dorrian).

Rik Appleby releases reggae and dub productions on Bandcamp as Lionheart Recordings.

John Philip Murray at Crane Lane.

Rhythm is everywhere (if we pay attention). The wind, waves, birdsong, car traffic, a crackling fire, speech. It’s the backbone of popular music. That must be why drummers are the best-known members of any band. But is that really true? “No,” says John Philip Murray (a drummer). “You know that hoary old joke: A band is four musicians and a drummer. Whereas drummers are the spinal cord of any band. They give everyone else clues and lead them through the form. A lot of orchestration occurs in a real drummer’s mind. Technical fireworks may impress but only those who truly focus on the tune will touch the hearts of their audience.”

Murray’s musical area is very specific (and challenging): jazz. A genre based on improvisation that clearly punches above its weight although its commercial market share is minute, compared to pop, rock, and hip-hop (often less than two per cent). The Guinness Cork Jazz Festival is one of Ireland’s largest annual music events. It draws 100,000-plus visitors and pumps almost €50m into the economy. 

Murray is not ‘just’ a freelance drummer. He also leads several bands. The John Philip Murray Quintet played five times during the Jazz Festival weekend in three different venues in Cork City and Kinsale. Another of his bands, which has been around “for ages, probably since 2000” is called Filology, a play on his middle name and the term philology, “the study of the structure, historical development, and relationships of a language or languages”. The ensemble itself has always been very flexible. “It has morphed into various different formats such as trios, quartets, quintets featuring an ever-changing cast of excellent jazz musicians (as people have so many commitments).” In addition, he plays with the DD Trio, which consists of David Desmond (keys), Martin Vallely (bass), and himself. Among others, they do a monthly jazz session at Ár n-Áit (Irish for ‘Our Place’), a former abattoir and artist-led hub for creative expression and collaboration in the tiny picturesque alley quarter of Skibbereen. This month’s  concert is on Sunday, January 18 (5-7pm).

In late August, 2025, Ár n-Áit appeared in the ‘What’s Hot’ column of the Irish Times described as a “gorgeous coffee spot… serving up Leonard Cohen on vinyl, chilled vibes and quality roasts.” Shane Breen, who created and manages the space, is really happy with the jazz session. “John Philip Murray is a legend and the trio bring in friends who join them for a few songs such as vocalists Josephine Smyth and Ciara O’Driscoll. I am surprised really at how many young people turn up who are curious about the music and really love it.” Especially in summer, Breen runs a full and eclectic programme, last year a/o featuring bands from New York, France/Peru, West Cork, and a Brazilian pop-up night with DJ Pedro Ahnuc with food cooked by the eminent Polish chef Peter. Plus, the Ciorcal Comhrá Irish class, Fridays 6-7:30pm, and trad music sessions some Saturdays, as well as another monthly resident band, the West Cork Dub Collective ft Rik Appleby, Patrick Healy, and Armando Ramírez plus guests (with an upcoming gig on Valentine’s Day). 

  John Philip Murray fell for music – hook, line, and sinker – aged six, when he was asked to play a drum to ’La Paloma’ (The Dove) at a school concert. Since then, “he has followed the pulse of music throughout his life” as he writes in his bio. “The teachers had put together a small percussion band,” he clarifies. “Three of us were given little drums. We played them vertically, like the bass drums in a New Orleans funeral march. I was the only one that really got the rhythm; I couldn’t understand how the others didn’t as I just felt it, loud and clear. That’s 67 years ago. The intuitive knowing is still in me. However, I truly connect to the essence of the tunes I play through singing.” He lives in Lissardagh (Cork) and grew up in Mount Merrion (Dublin). A music-focused school helped. “When I was 12, four of us had a little band that played songs of the Yardbirds, Monkeys, Beach Boys, Beatles until we progressed to blues standards, which offered a great foundation. Then, in my mid-teens, I was sitting in English class beside a friend, Killian. As was my norm, I was tapping on the desk. A rhythm by Ginger Baker, rock drummer. Suddenly Killian asked, how would Ginger Baker compare with Joe Morello? Joe Morello was the drummer of the Dave Brubeck Quartet who challenged the ensemble’s alto saxophonist Paul Desmond to compose a piece in 5/4 metre, which resulted in Take Five – the biggest-selling jazz single of all time. I thought Killian played the classical piano but when he mentioned Morello it was only a matter of time before we put a jazz band together in his front room and I was hooked for good.”  A seminal learning moment occurred when, aged 23, he purchased the Charles Mingus album, ‘Let My Children Hear Music,’ and put it on his portable record player with Dave Fleming, a bassist he still plays with. “The two of us started listening to it at 4pm and by 6am the following morning we could sing all the main themes and solos. That’s how you get to know a tune.” 

Murray is not just a musician but also a talented visual artist. “Painting is a parallel strand, another way of explaining the world to myself. A visual equivalent to music.” He has held over 20 solo exhibitions, participated in many group shows, and won a joint Oireachtas Award in 2008. He started to paint at around the same age as his musical talent came to the fore. And he approaches both art forms in similar ways. “My paintings often start from ideas, literature, history rather than visual imagery. With music, a tune or melody or harmonic twist is more likely to engage me than whatever the drummer is doing. I once saw Elvin Jones (an American jazz drummer who played with the stellar saxophonist John Coltrane) and his sound completely overwhelmed me… Great waves of rolling tones. Pure music! Some paintings bring tears to my eyes but it happens rarely. Maybe three times in my life. Fra Angelico (15th century) springs to mind. Whereas with music, if a month goes by that something hasn’t touched me, that’s a very bleak month. The brain isn’t involved at all. It’s just straight to the heart. When I’m playing, I consciously do not think.”

“Timeless Jazz” (John Philip Murray, Dave Fleming, Pierrick Menuau, and Tommy Halferty) play a concert at the Briery Gap (Macroom) on February 22

www.brierygap.ie

www.ar-n-ait.com

Moze Jacobs chats to Maria Doyle Kennedy (MDK) ahead of her gig at Levis’ Corner House in Ballydehob.

MDK plays Levis’ on Saturday, November 13, 8pm, not with a group of musicians, but with her husband Kieran, who is almost a band in himself. He plays (steel) guitar, piano, banjo, mandolin, looping pedals, sings backing vocals. He also produces, arranges, and composes most of the music for MDK. The duo played Levis’ last year, also in mid-December. In a glowing review of that gig Jason Ward wrote “Kennedy once said she wouldn’t miss acting but could not pass a day without singing. And when she starts, you realise why; because her songs and her voice come from her soul. This isn’t the fake soul of pained expressions on TV talent shows […] It is the soul of telling a story, of expressing an emotion and telling a truth.” 

Maria Doyle Kennedy was one of the breakout stars of The Commitments (1991), a film based on a Roddy Doyle novel, which tells the story of the rise and demise of a soul band in Dublin, comprised of friends, foes and strangers, 

Today the singer isn’t very keen to talk about The Commitments.

“No, I don’t have anything to say about that. I’d much rather focus on what we’re making now. It was released 34 years ago.” It’s not really necessary, either. The successful cult film, with a cast that included Colm Meaney, Glen Hansard and Andrea Corr, can be watched for free online while there are plenty of YouTube videos of Maria belting out ‘I never loved a man’ with the passion of a great soul singer. 

It is but one of her numerous manifestations. She sings in many different voices. Folky, ethereal, earthly, lyrical, poppy, hauntingly dark. The many praiseful reviews of her albums and performances reference the Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Ros, as well as Sandy Denny, the Cocteau Twins. She is described as “a powerful mixture between a folk siren and a punk-diva…one of the great voices of Ireland. The Celtic Patti Smith” (Basel Zeitung). And, “MDK is still one hell of a musical force to be reckoned with” (Irish Times). She, or rather ‘they’ have released 12 albums to date. And then there are the other roles she fulfills. Mother of four sons. Songwriter. Polymath. Actor in over 50 films and TV series. Video director/producer. Composer (together with Kieran). Artist.

‘Maria + Kieran Rehearsal’ (Mermaid Records, 2025) is their latest album to date, released November 17. The cover is adorned with (an artistic impression of) husband and wife. The album features rehearsal versions of existing songs in updated arrangements. The latter has happened before. On their Bandcamp page are two very different versions of a song called Mother. The first is on the album ‘Mütter’ (Mermaid Records, 2007) and the second on ‘Songs from the Kitchen Table’ (also on Mermaid Records, their own label), released January 1, 2020, just before Covid. 

“The Rehearsal album was unplanned,” says Maria. “We were practicing for the upcoming Irish tour and Kieran was recording without even telling me. Just for his own benefit. It was very relaxed.”

The result is surprisingly good. Especially as the songs were recorded in their kitchen.

“At one end of the kitchen table is what we call Kieran’s office where he has his speakers and mixing desks. He works away down there all the time. Whereas I find it very difficult to record or write at home. My eyes just wander over to the laundry and I’m clocking up in my mind all these other jobs that I have to get to. Under lockdown, we recorded most of Fire on the Roof of Eden in the kitchen. There’s a lot going on in the background on that album. If you listen closely, you can hear a child come in and ask, What’s for dinner. Or a cat, a rumbling washing machine. Kieran doesn’t mind. He likes to be immersed in the sound of the family. It’s funny, we’ve each got different requirements for creativity.”

The Rehearsal Album is up on Bandcamp. On Maria’s Instagram there are little backstories for the individual songs. She wrote about ‘Comfort Song’: I was apart from Kieran and missing him. To calm down, I started to hum melodies to myself and tried to put into words what it was I was missing. I realised that a lot has to do with the sound that he makes. The constant hum of his presence and commentary on the day, his sighs and clicks, maybe stomping and laughing.”

The couple met in a nightclub. “It was very late at night. We talked at the bar but didn’t make any plans.”

“He’s very cute,” says Maria. “I had left the band I was singing in. Then Kieran got in touch and said, I have a band and I wonder if you would like to do some singing. I said, Do you want to send me the music? I didn’t find out until 10 years after we married that he didn’t have a particular demo that he was planning to make at that time. He just wanted to ask me out. So he got somebody to give him some money to record a demo, got people together and booked a studio. And that became The Black Velvet Band.” 

Their first solo release, ‘Charm’, was in 2001 and their next album will be released in 2026. It contains brand-new songs.

“Mostly recorded in Kilruddery House, where we were artists-in-residence,” shares Maria.

One of the songs, ‘Every Day, Every Night’, can be heard in a video on MDK’s Facebook page. Poignant lines are, ‘Love is coming/Grief is my partner, she’ll see it through to the end’.

“Singing this song was helpful and comforting,” says Maria. “In the past years, we lost people that were very close to us, including a friend I’d had since age 17. It kickstarted this whole album, trying to process the loss and grief. Music is an incredible treasure trove. That’s why I connected with it so deeply, like many people, from the time I was in my teens, looking for something to explain the raging madness that your mind and body has turned into while you don’t have the emotional language for the bigger feelings.”

Born, bred and living in Dingle, Pa Sheehy used to be the lead singer of ‘Walking on Cars’, a remarkable Indie pop band that rode a wave of success for over 10 years (between 2010 and 2020). 

His family wasn’t big into music but he was drawn to it from when he was a child. “I was always singing along with whatever was on the radio and in my teenage years, we started a little rock band in school. I didn’t play an instrument then, so during our first rehearsal there was the drummer, the bass player, and the guitar player, and they threw a lyric book at me. It was the first time I ever wrote a song. I was about 13.”

Fast forward nine years and Pa and four other people he had known since childhood and played with at local venues, “we were kind of the only musicians in our age group”, became very serious about forming a band. Together, they moved into a secluded house. Quite a radical step. All they did (it is said) was write songs. “A couple of friends staying in a little cottage with no huge pressure on us at all. We were on the dole, so we had a bit of freedom to make music and not worry about other things for a couple of years. We wrote some cool tunes. It was just an uncomplicated time in our lives without any expectations and we were living very simply.” One of their songs was ‘Speeding Cars’ and the band eventually called itself ‘Walking on Cars’. Nobody knows why, exactly. The drummer came up with it and it stuck. Maybe it was its very incongruity (who walks on cars?) that made the name memorable. 

The band’s self-released first single, ‘Catch Me If You Can’ (2012) was played on radio, attracted a fan base, and gained them national popularity. Three years later it was re-released by an official record label, Virgin EMI /RCA and appeared on their debut album, ‘Everything This Way’, which reached the top spot on the Irish Albums Chart in 2016 and stayed there for three weeks. Perhaps their best-known single was ‘Speeding Cars’ (2015). It gave them international recognition, has by now had over 52 million views on YouTube and been streamed 117 million times. More singles followed, tours of Europe, Australia. They played large venues and festivals, gave interviews, did radio, TV. Quite the career. 

Pa Sheehy thinks that part of their “expansion” may have been due to management. “To be fair, we had a brilliant UK-based manager. Actually, they were a duo and they orchestrated it really, really well. They had a lot of clout in the industry and, because of it, we started making bigger moves.” 

Walking on Cars also tried to break through in America. That didn’t go so well. “A friend of the managers was the A&R (Artists and Repertoire) at Capital Records in the US, a huge label. We were so excited, convinced this was our big chance. The entire band went out to America for two weeks to do a promo trip. And then we spent 10 out of the 14 days sitting by the pool in LA. Nice holiday, but nothing came of it. Before we had made it to America, our contact person was fired. So basically, the ship had sunk before we even got there. A classic record industry drama.” It was one of the signs that the tide was turning. “For a while, everything was wonderful but making our second album was a big hurdle,” shares Pa. “There was a new manager, our guitarist had left the band. We were dropped by the label. A lot of our time was wasted in meetings with lawyers about contracts and rights and the album wasn’t a commercial success compared to the first one. Then Covid hit. We went our separate ways.” 

Ever since, Pa has been pursuing his own career. To date, he has produced ten singles, three EPs and an album, ‘Maybe It Was All For This’ (2024). “Once the band finished, going solo felt like the natural next step. I knew I had creative energy and there were songs to come out of me.”

But things have changed. For the better, as far as his personal life is concerned. “A lot of Walking on Cars songs were based on sadness and break-ups. Now, I feel freer to be whatever and whoever I am. When this all started I wanted us to be the biggest band in the world. I thought we were the best. That there was no stopping us. It was a delusion, of course, but it gave us the energy to get as far as we did.” 

Does he still have ambitions of musical world domination? “I really don’t. I love the level I’m at. When I was in ‘Walking on Cars’ there were lots of times when I’d be noticed around the place. Lots of people wanted selfies. Now I’m happy flying under the radar. It’s like a sweet spot.”

Jake Stanley (53) may be one of the best singer-songwriters you’ve never heard of writes Moze Jacobs.

A friendly, energetic, dynamic presence on stage, Jake was born in Barnsley (UK) but moved with his family to Schull some 10 years ago. He is a multi-instrumentalist who plays bass, guitar, keyboard and has penned and almost single-handedly played (albeit together with some superb female vocalists, his daughter Madeleine and Susanna Goodwright) the music on the 10 Jake Stanley releases that are currently available on Bandcamp. These include five full albums plus several singles such as ‘Christmas is Cancelled’/‘Prayer for the Earth’, often containing emotionally intelligent lyrics as well as social commentary: “It was the night before lockdown, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring because of new legislation concerning social distancing.” He credits Duncan O’Cleirigh at Blackwater studios for helping him put his catalogue ‘out there’. “Without him, I probably would still be playing covers in hotel bars.”

His first West Cork Tour got off to a flying start when he performed ‘The Ballad of Will Jones’ in the Skibbereen Town Hall during Culture Night. A fictional “tale of love, trials and rivalry told in songs and spoken word interweaving three lives”, it is set against the historical backdrop of WWI, aka the Great War (1914-1918). “The narrative is about Will, a young man heading for America after being spurned by his lover, Molly, who has married his rival, Craven, a jealous, possessive, evil, rich, vainglorious swine. Each chapter has a corresponding song. I’m performing it with a wonderful ensemble. Pete Carney (bass), Kathy Henderson (keyboards, violin, and mighty vocals), Dave W. (mandolin), Kevin O’Shanahan (drums). It feels really good to have them in my corner.” The tour is part of the West Cork Feel Good Festival.

 Jake’s extensive output on Bandcamp is self-produced and self-published. It is crystal clear that his music is quite unique. At the same time – and because everyone is influenced by something – there is one band that resonates firmly in the background (and occasionally in the foreground): The Beatles. Not that he copies them. It’s more subtle – as if John, Paul, George and Ringo are in his DNA. And that, it turns out, is almost literally true. “As a kid, I wanted to be a Beatle. One of the first bands I ever remember listening to. To me they were massive. I’d be hard-pressed to find artists that influenced me as ubiquitously. Not so much the teeny bopper stuff – ‘She Loves You, yeah, yeah, yeah’ – but what they produced in the latter part of their career. Starting with ‘Rubber Soul’. ‘Revolver’ is my favourite album. As a honest-to-goodness, working-class hero, I’m definitely in the John Lennon camp. Paul always seemed a bit too saccharine.” The Beatles had pride of place in his parents’ record collection. “Alongside the Stones, Bowie, the Eagles, all sorts of 60s and 70s stuff. My dad was a postman but he also played music. I remember asking him once if he’d teach me how to play guitar. I must have been seven or eight. He said, “The best way to learn is to teach yourself”. And walked away. One of my lifelong ambitions still is: to get him to compliment me. Yet, my first musical aha moment occurred precisely after he told me to figure it out for myself. I gave the guitar to my mum and said, “What do you do with this thing?” My mum couldn’t play a note but she knew that if you pressed a string, plucked it, and went up and down the fret, the pitch would change. She passed back the guitar and said, “That’s all I’ve got.” Once I understood the mechanics, everything started to flow. I remember being bought a book, the Bert Weedon Book of Chords that contained every chord known to man. Such as an E major suspended seventh, augmented fifth. I just spent hours and hours tracing my fingers across the guitar and learning these chords and I was pretty good by the time I was 12. I’ve often wondered if I’ve got Attention Deficit Disorder, as my mind tends to wander, but I’ve never, ever, had that problem while playing the guitar. The few times when I’ve gone on holiday, I’m sure its absence contributes to me not being the best company. I’m dreadful. Ask my wife, Annette.” 

Did you start writing songs straight away?

“No! For a long time I only played covers. We figured out at 15-years-old, still in school, that learning well-known covers – Beatles, Dire Straits, Pink Floyd – could make us loads of money. We used to transport our amps and instruments to the venues in shopping trolleys as we were too young to drive. You could hire the local Montgomery Hall for 12 quid, including the PA. We’d sell tickets for a quid, get 120 people in. There were just three of us (bass, guitar, drums) so we were laughing. I was earning more than my Dad. Later, I would play in wedding bands, even got a two-record publishing deal with a band called Hokum. But I never crafted a decent song until my mid-40s. I think I had to sort of wait for life to happen to me enough. The first good song was ‘Plain Sailing’, which is on ‘The Tricks Of The Trade Won’t Save The Day’, my first album.”

He explains that it was written on the back of a deeply personal family tragedy in 2013 that he doesn’t want to describe in detail. Almost ashamed, he says: “Creatively, it shaped everything that came afterwards. Until then, I’d had a really frivolous relationship with music. It was just fun. This time, after a huge and sometimes very painful period of growth, I discovered that music could also be a therapeutic tool. That’s why I’m so happy to play the Feel Good Festival, which revolves around mental health, alongside the Tony Cotter Band. Both Tony and myself are living proof that creativity can help you go a long way towards recovery.”

During the Festival, Jake and Tony will play Shanley’s (Clonakilty, October 3), Ár-n-Áit (Skibbereen,  October 4), O’Regan’s (Schull, October 16), Levis’ Corner House (Ballydehob, October 19), Bridge Street Community Café (Bantry, October 23), Connolly’s of Leap (October 26). 

There is something about DeBarra’s Folk Club in West Cork that stirs up echoes of a glorious rock music past. It could be the shiny double platinum record, framed, behind glass, on one of the walls. It’s not fake, not a replica, but very real. The title of the record? ‘Are You Experienced’, released in 1967. A colourful photo of three young men, also mounted, confirms who recorded this album: The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Guitar genius Hendrix (who died aged 27 on September 18, 1970) flanked by his two sidemen, Mitch Mitchell (drums) and Noel Redding (bass). The latter, as many people still remember, an often taciturn but constant musically-vibrant presence in Clonakilty until his untimely and unexpected death in 2003. He had arrived in the market town (and settled in the small village of Ardfield, a few miles outside it) in 1972. Rumour has it that the location was a random choice. The drummer Les Sampson, who played with Redding when the decision was made and also moved to Clonakilty – where he still lives and plays in Stephen Housden’s Kings of Kudos, Noel Redding – “stuck a pin in a map and it ended up in West Cork” while they were both in Hollywood. Definitely true is the fact that Redding’s 31-year stay in Clonakilty added enormously to the status of DeBarra’s as a serious rock music venue (with a knock-on effect on other pubs in Clonakilty such as Shanley’s and likely, West Cork as a whole). As well as the platinum plaque, he gifted guitars, did weekly residencies, gigged across the town and took part in informal jam sessions, sometimes joined by the celebrities that he attracted, including David Bowie and Paul McCartney, and threw parties at the house where he lived with his wife (until her death in 1990) and subsequent partners and later, his mother. Perhaps the most important legacy is that he inspired a lively local music scene that continued to thrive for a good while, even after his death from cancer. 

The website of DeBarra’s Folk Club is graced by a long essay about Noel Redding by the poet Dave Lordan, who grew up in Clonakilty. He is also mentioned in the blurb, written by Ray Blackwell, of a rather mysterious musical entity, Qualiphaunt, which plays DeBarra’s in September. It’s described as a, “smoking hot, rock solid house band … under the guidance of Seamus Poillot.” The band, which plays most months, operates, “in the same spirit of generosity and stewardship that Noel Redding afforded many when he first came to West Cork and began to play music again. This is a valuable opportunity to showcase local talent and encourage and nurture youthful rock ‘n roll exuberance for the future!”

Seamus Poillot (31) has been working at and with DeBarra’s Folk Club for about 10 years. Among others, as a sound engineer. Too young to really remember Noel Redding as a famous musician, he smiles a little at the comparison. “Those aren’t my words but I think the idea is that Noel brought a lot of people together to play music. And I guess I’m doing something similar.” Seamus is also a musician in his own right, unstoppable and talented, who ‘got the bug’ when he was about eight. “My older cousin was about 13 or 14. He was the coolest person on the planet as far as I was concerned as he happened to play a bit of bass, which made me want to play it, too. A friend of his was in a few bands and I asked him to teach me. Straight away, I just loved it. I would come home from school and play for hours.” Earlier his grandfather, Brawny (John) Wycherley from Ring, with a passion for classical music and brass bands (he initiated the South of Ireland Band Championships) had tried to teach him to play the piano. “He’d always be playing and gave me a few lessons back in the day. Where to put my fingers, how to read. It didn’t resonate much with me; it felt a lot like schoolwork.” He joined a band in secondary school and fairly soon afterwards figured he didn’t really need to do his leaving cert until his family intervened. After studying music for two years, he decided to focus purely on writing songs. He recorded everything himself and then got people together to play them live as The Big Lovin’, a six-person band that recorded four singles, made a few funny videos, was well-produced and eventually put on a backburner. “It is hard to get paid for performing original music. And when you’re offered a gig at a wedding where you get good money and they want covers, it’s difficult to turn that down.”

His next group was Black Apple Bastards (or, Bastrds, as Spotify euphemistically chooses to call them). “One day, a band which was due to play suddenly cancelled, and Ray asked me, could I quickly come up with something else?” So I asked a few people that I knew and had played with before. We weren’t very good but managed to get through the gig. I kept it going for the years and we slowly got better. Black Apple Bastards is the very first cover band that I’ve played with regularly in DeBarra’s.” 

And then there is Qualiphaunt, which is a different kettle of fish. “In the last four or five years, while working as a soundman, I started to notice that there are plenty of really good players and singer-songwriters around but I am not seeing many real bands. Which is a bit of a shame for that’s how I learned to play music, live and at risk of messing up on stage. Qualiphant is very much aimed at inexperienced players or musicians who have only been playing solo. I guess it’s a band but at the same time, a revolving door of different players. It’s a pleasure to give people the opportunity to perform on a stage with such a reputation, where they may not have played before, and to get them to play songs that wouldn’t be their first choice just to push them out of their comfort zone for a bit. I feel that is the best way to learn. Just get up on stage and play the wrong chords and watch everything magically falling into place nonetheless.” 

The next Qualiphaunt gig is on September 7 (6-8pm) in DeBarra’s Folk Club, 55 Pearse Street, P85 RH95 Clonakilty.

There is no doubt whatsoever: Jack Lukeman aka Jack L has a great voice. It straddles four octaves and operates in a variety of keys, acrobatically. “One of the most distinctive and recognisable voices in Irish music over the past 20-odd years,” is how he is introduced at the start of a live stream recorded on January 17, 2021 and preserved for all eternity on YouTube. At the start, the camera travels through a desolately-empty Caroline Street to the music venue Cyprus Avenue. It’s a mere four-and-a-half years ago, but from a 2025 viewpoint it looks like a parallel timeline in a different universe. 

It being Planet Covid, there isn’t a ‘real’ audience in sight. Only a tiny crew is allowed into the building, including a presenter who tells the online viewers that, by then, during Ireland’s third lockdown, Jack has reached a quarter of a million people (the number would eventually rise to 400,000-plus) in various countries across the world with his streamed performances, which went live most weekends. Streaming was something he’d never done before but he took to it with gusto. 

A prolific singer-songwriter, Jack Lukeman (born Seán Loughman in Athy, Co Kildare in 1973) had already released 14 albums by then and went on to record ‘Streamed: Best of the Lockdown Sessions Vol. 1’. He had an insatiable desire to keep performing during that unusual time: “Everything was a bit weird, nobody knew what was going on, it was quite apocalyptic. And obviously, there was no immediate audience reaction.” Only by looking at the comments underneath his videos, afterwards, did he become aware that he was touching the hearts of people everywhere. “That was quite moving. What I love is that, even in this situation of forced isolation, people liked to gather and experience something in real time, altogether. As if we were sitting around a digital campfire, continuing on that tradition of storytelling and music.” He focused on his own songs for the first few sessions but then decided to cover some of the repertoire of the singer-songwriters he enjoyed and admired. “We did David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, a Bob Dylan night, the Beatles vs the Stones, an eighties night that compelled me to fit music from an entire decade into one session. It was great, I spent the whole week as if cramming for an exam but after about eight weeks the brain couldn’t take it anymore. So I decided to record a Best Of album. The audience got to vote on their favourite songs.”

So when does a good voice qualify as ‘great’? In popular music, it doesn’t necessarily have to be technically perfect. The voices of some famous singers (Amy Winehouse, Janis Joplin, Macy Gray) may be raw, rough, even screechy at times. Bob Dylan sounds decidedly nasal. Bruno Mars (today’s top Spotify artist who reaches a staggering 151 million monthly listeners) is a bit generic. But to their millions of fans, it doesn’t matter. They pack so many lyrical and emotional punches that greatness is assured.  

Jack Lukeman doesn’t appear to be aiming for musical global domination. His voice is amazing, also in a technical sense, but not polished. It’s unashamedly honest, as it weaves through areas of emotional rawness and vulnerability. ‘Broken songs’ is an album he recorded in 2003: ‘I’ll fire up my voice / And sing you these broken songs’.

He has played all over the world and praised in the press: “A mixture of all the great voices of the 20th Century. Five stars.” (The Guardian) “A gorgeous, versatile Baritone.” (Washington Post)

Not surprisingly, he has a large number of devoted fans. Also in West Cork. He performs in Clonakilty (July 12), at DeBarra’s Folk Club. “I’ve been playing there every summer for quite some time and I always look forward to it. Such a great venue, with a good listening audience.” The gig is part of his ‘Unbroken Songs 2025’ tour, a celebration of a 30-year career he has almost continuously journeyed across the world, “singing up the spirits of audiences with some of the greatest songs of all time. […] The show features signature tracks and rare gems.”

Jack’s earliest albums were released in the mid-1990s. “They only exist in the world of CDs and I don’t think they’re online. I come from a time when you could actually make a living out of selling CDs but not now. It’s a joke really. A baker gets paid for his bread, a barista gets paid for her coffee but for some reason, musicians are expected to stream away their wares for free. I think the culture has changed since COVID. People don’t go out as much and you have a generation that has grown up glued to their phones. I was looking at a poster from 2017 last night, I think I did 200 gigs or more. A ridiculous amount. I’m lucky that I have audiences who are very loyal and come to the shows but you would worry about people who are just starting out.” 

His wonderful vocals didn’t come out of nowhere. “My family had a garage business that has been around for two or three generations. There was always music in the house, sessions, and my dad would sing. He was into the old Irish tenors like John McCormick and he had a fine voice. Actually, I was obsessed with music. But whereas I could see that my voice had a nice effect on people, I was still uncertain about going out into the world and performing. So I went to Holland to work in factories. And then I met a guy with a guitar and we started busking. When I made more money playing music than by doing ordinary work, I realised for the first time that I could actually survive as a musician and I started to believe in myself.” 

Jack has done considerably more than simply “survive”. He is constantly reinventing himself (the fine song Lazarus bears witness to that). He’s created a wonderful short ambient soundscape movie, Whispered Wisdom, incorporating autonomous sensory meridian response techniques and his grandfather Jack Keogh’s (1915-1994) memoir of drawings and writings (it can be viewed online). He regularly plays alongside large choirs. As an ambassador for the Blackrock Castle Observatory (Cork) he inspires kids to be interested in space and astronomy. He has sung to real-life astronauts.

“I like playing for people, I like lifting them up. I’ve been lucky that I have a voice and I will use it as long as I can. I guess I was born to make music.”

Jack Lukeman plays DeBarra’s Folk Club, Clonakilty on July 12.

It’s May 2025. The sky is grey. A singer stands under a porch in Bandon. His hands move masterly across the neck and body of his guitar. Chords well-played. But it’s the sound, the melody and the soaring lyrics of his song that give it wings and lift it above the ordinary. A relatively small but very appreciative audience bursts into applause after he finishes on a final and decisive chord. Anyone who knows anything about music will recognise that this self-assured performance wouldn’t be out of place on a large festival stage. The song has all the hallmarks of a hit. From the eloquent and measured opening lines to the rousing, repeated but not repetitive chorus at the end. Not to mention that hard-to-define quality in the man’s voice that touches people’s hearts and souls. Especially during this weekly ‘Vigil for Gaza’ – Sundays at 5pm on Bandon’s Main Street. 

Yet not all passers-by in this public space are prepared to listen. Some hasten their step, cloaked in indifference. Stone-cold faces refuse to let his words sink in, as if to prove his words as he sings “Our universities, some of our great minds/Are silent on the genocide/Silence, silence. […] Our companies and our offices and our staffrooms and our board meetings/And somebody brings up Palestine and the genocide/Silence, silence. In the face of this atrocity/Silence is complicity.” Sung not with aggression or hatred but with an almost gentle passion. Inviting people to open their hearts.

His name is Martin Leahy.

A multi-instrumentalist with an Irish traditional, as well as rock ‘n roll background, Leahy is an experienced musician, totally committed to his craft, who plays crowds of any size with equal intensity – whether there are 10 or tens of thousands in the audience. And he is no stranger to the latter. “My parents were encouraging us all to play music; my dad had a Country ‘n Irish band so I would have heard a lot of that stuff, growing up. I started out on the music scene in Cork as a drummer. My brother Christy played the traditional accordion and, when I was 18, I wound up joining his band on the snare drum.” Named North Cregg after an uilleann pipe tune referring to a small townland near Fermoy, it became quite successful internationally and played big folk festivals in places like Glastonbury, Milwaukee, Cambridge, Tønder Festival in Denmark, Celtic Connections in Glasgow. 

In his 20s, Martin Leahy branched out into guitar, then bass, and became part of the fabric of many different bands. “As a kind of session musician, really. Then in my 30s I set up my own home studio, started recording albums for people and got into music production.” 

A consummate professional, he remained in the background and didn’t attract a lot of attention to himself. “I never sang. I didn’t feel that I could do it. Even at a sound check, if somebody said, ‘Say Hello into that microphone to check it,’ I wouldn’t do it, as I was extremely self-conscious when it came to using my voice in public. At the same time, the people that I had really enjoyed listening to while growing up were singer-songwriters such as Woody Guthrie, Christy Moore, Sinéad O’Connor, Joni Mitchell. And deep down I felt that I, too, had something to express.” 

He confesses that he always sang at home to himself. But only during COVID did he fine-tune his vocals to the extent that he felt more confident about publishing one of his own songs ‘Where We Lay Our Bodies Down’ (for Ann Lovett) on on video,. “She was a 15-year-old schoolgirl in 1984 when she gave birth to a son beside a grotto in the village of Granard (Co Longford), where she lived. The baby was found dead and she died soon afterwards. It shook the country in many ways. There was so much shame and secrecy around what actually happened. It was mere months after a national referendum was voted down that aimed to recognise “the equal right to life of the pregnant woman and the unborn”. Ultimately, she’s responsible for a lot of change. It was the first song I put on YouTube under my own name. It got a good reaction, which was very encouraging. And then I just kept doing it. I had always been aware that using your voice was a way to shine a light on issues.” 

In 2022, the issue of homelessness came sharply into focus for Martin Leahy when he received an eviction notice after his landlord decided to sell the house where he lived. He was inspired to write a song, ‘Everyone should have a home’ and decided to sing it (and other songs) outside the gates of the Dáil every Thursday for an hour. Audiences formed, journalists visited, teachers brought their students; sometimes other musicians or (opposition) politicians join in. In May, he marked the day that he had been doing this for three years straight. Not really a cause for ‘celebration’, as rents continue to spiral and homelessness is increasing at an accelerating rate. So, although he has now found another place to live, he will continue his weekly protest, regardless of the inconvenience of travelling to Dublin every week from West Cork. And notwithstanding the online mud that is thrown at him for being an outspoken activist. (He wrote a song about it ‘Snowflakes’, which has been covered by Christy Moore). It is a matter of principle: he cannot stand injustice. And he stays true to his word. 

As a musician, Martin Leahy still sometimes plays the role of backing musician, for example for John Spillane on drums as a member of the Band of Wrens (July 3 in DeBarra’s Folk Club, Clonakilty). But he’ll also be featured as a singer-songwriter in his own right during the Clonakilty International Guitar Festival (September 17-21). Rightly so. The songs that he has written in the past years, driven by a sense of purpose, are excellent. Not just in the context of direct action and activism – music can be the glue that helps keep a movement together – but also as songs that can (and probably will) stand the test of time as they uphold underlying human values. 

Martin Leahy’s music can be found on Bandcamp, Spotify and YouTube and at various (West) Cork events for Gaza (see www.ipsc.ie).

Born in the UK to a British mother, and an Irish father who was the son of a Church of Ireland minister from a long line of clerics, James Harpur now lives in Rossmore. He started to write in his early twenties. “I came to poetry only at university,” he told Poetry Ireland Review in 2011. “I suddenly obeyed a subterranean urge and decided that poetry was a noble pursuit and a means of exploring ultimate spiritual questions (by which I mean, is there a God, is there a point to life, is there life after death, and so on), which had always been a central driving force in my life – possibly all those rectors in my DNA. Poetry felt like a mission.” 

While writing, he uses a process called ‘active imagination’ as developed by the Swiss psychotherapist Carl Gustav Jung between 1913 and 1916. It is a meditation technique that can serve as a bridge between the conscious ‘ego’ and the unconscious mind.

To date, James Harpur has published 10 collections of poetry, three non-fiction books, and a well-received novel, The Pathless Country, which is all about Ireland. His latest collection, ‘The Gospel of Gargoyle’ (Eblana Press, 2024) was published some months ago. It will be the focus of his reading at DeBarra’s (hosted by Catherine Ronan). In some ways, it is an ode to one of the most iconic Roman-Catholic buildings in the world, the 12th-century Notre-Dame Cathedral. “A building that meant and means a lot to me. I was in Paris for a month in 2018 on a writing residency and saw it almost every day. When the great fire broke out in 2019, I was absolutely devastated.” He began to work on the collection during Covid. “I was quite rattled at the start by its apocalyptic feel. No one really knew how bad the virus would turn out to be.” As is the case with many of his books, dreams played an important part in its genesis. “I occasionally have dreams where I fly backwards in the sky. In this dream, I landed on the rooftop of Notre Dame and saw this gargoyle. He looked at me and said, “Poets do not come here anymore”. It became the opening line to the entire book that basically consists of, “A dialogue between a poet figure like myself and this gargoyle figure on top of Notre Dame who believes he’s a spirit trapped in stone. He needs a redemption or an escape and the gargoyle believes the poet can help him achieve that through acts and words of imagination. The collection is part poem and part whodunit. The central question is, who or what started the fire in the cathedral?  I am not going to spill the beans here by telling you what the answer is.” The book comes with wonderful and dramatic illustrations by Paul Ó Colmáin. It seems to hold a fair bit of theatrical appeal in any case. Staged readings involving singers and a short film have already taken place in two places in West Cork. James Harpur: “Eventually it could become a radio play, an opera, a musical. Or even a graphic novel.”

The Gospel of Gargoyle – James Harpur reading, April 9, 8:30pm, DeBarra’s Folk Club, 55 Pearse Street, Clonakilty

Interview with the author is on YouTube

Traditional Irish music is a bit of a miracle. In many other Western European countries, homegrown music with roots that go back centuries (or even millennia) might be played at rural festivals and during cultural celebrations: A reminder of times long gone and largely obsolete. Here in West Cork and the rest of Ireland, trad is alive and well, played in places of all shapes and sizes, from tiny villages to big cities. Anyone can join a session, if they feel confident, as the technical standard often is high. On www.thesession.org, “a community website dedicated to Irish traditional music”, new tunes are uploaded every few minutes. Some say there are more than 8,000 Irish tunes in existence but this is hard to verify. The earliest named Irish musician was the fifth century Saint Seachnall, while the most celebrated composer in living memory is Turlough O’Carolan (1670–1738), a blind harper whose tunes can still be heard in a pub near you. In the 1970s there were two bands that introduced Irish trad and folk music to the global music scene: Planxty (from which emerged Christy Moore, still active as a solo artist) and the Bothy Band (Paddy Keenan, likewise). The latter will play DeBarra’s Folk Club in Clonakilty on February 14, alongside the award-winning musicians Tim Edey (guitar) and Dermot Byrne (accordion). The musician-songwriter Paddy Keenan turned 75 on January 30, yet his spirit is forever young writes Moze Jacobs.

As a “musical hero of the modern age”, Paddy received the TG4 Gradam Ceoil Musician of the Year award in 2002 and a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011. Born in Trim (Co Meath), he spent a few years in Clonakilty where he had a decisive influence on the local Irish music scene. “There was a weekly session in Fahey’s pub across the road with locals and some musicians from nearby villages. I remember looking for a quiet pub for a pint and ending up in DeBarra’s with a friend from Dublin, the singer and guitarist Deckie Hunt. We sat in the corner and started to play and sing. Various people were about to leave but decided to stay; the then pub owner Bobby Blackwell saw the potential and from there we started up a weekly session with the local musicians such as Tommy Tupper, Denis Noonan, Gerry Lombard, Tommy O’Leary, and others. Much later, Noel Redding relocated from a pub around the corner where he’d been playing for years.” As Jimi Hendrix’s famous former bassist, Noel Redding would become a magnet who motivated people from all over the world to visit DeBarra’s pub and by extension, Clonakilty and West Cork.

Paddy’s father was part of the Traveller community. Young Paddy travelled up and down the many roads of Ireland with his family until he was seven. “All my siblings were born in different parts of the country; even in Newry up in the North.” His mother, from a settled background, convinced his father to move into a house. Life on the road was rough and tough but also, in some ways, appealing. “It wasn’t romantic, as many people think,” Paddy explains. “But none of us really wanted to live in a house. We still moved to Ballyfermot (Dublin), next door to fellow travellers Ted Furey and his sons, including Finbarr, who lived with us for a while.”

Music runs in Paddy Keenan’s veins. His father and grandfather were uilleann pipers. “The first music I would have heard in the wagon was my dad playing the flute or pipes or banjo. Later, my brother John taught me to play the tin whistle. Then one day, when I was ten, my dad heard me play his pipes as he returned from fishing with Ted Furey. I thought he’d be cross with me but no, he started to tutor me alongside Finbar. I love the pipes above all other instruments. The sound is very expressive. It belongs to the landscape.”

Paddy played his first major concert at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, aged 14, and later joined the rest of his family who called themselves The Pavees. Pavee is another word for Irish traveller (Irish: ‘an lucht siúil’, meaning the walking people). He is a multi-instrumentalist who also plays guitar and various whistles. Above all, his mind is wide open to all sorts of influences. “There’s a blues and jazz aspect in a lot the tunes I play, some bluegrass and even reggae.” He was once described as, “the Jimi Hendrix of the pipes”.  “All I can say about him is, he was a player who followed his mood. A bit like myself. I’m sure that he, too, had to deal with a lot of discrimination and racism as he grew up, which would influence his musical expression.”   

In the early years of this century, Paddy Keenan spent three Januarys in Mali, a large country that is among the hottest in the world. Together with Liam Ó Maonlaí (Hothouse Flowers) he starred in Dambé: The Mali Project, a well-received documentary film that follows them as they travel 3000 miles to the remote Festival in the Desert, near Timbuktu.

“My mother had just died and I was getting away from all that. I had never been to Africa before. Being there really reminded me of my path as a seven-year-old. The nomadic life that inspired my album, The Long-Grazing Acre. Of course Mali was a bit different. You could see the tents along the road from your hotel window. 

We played with international stars like Toumani Diabaté, as well as with local musicians. When I got out of a boat in the middle of nowhere, some kids who were playing soccer on the bank of the river Niger ran away in fear. They had never seen a white man and believed I was a ghost. Then one of their fathers came to me with a bamboo flute. I joined him with my low whistle, did what he was doing and we clicked without a word. It was as my father said, “You’ll speak all languages if you play music along the road. And you’ll never go hungry .”

Paddy Keenan is working on a limited-edition album featuring the music of The Pavees. He plays DeBarra’s Folk Club on February 14, 8:30pm, www.debarra.ie

There is something about West Cork. It may be the landscape, or the people. It holds a powerful attraction. 

Katrina O’Kane was well aware of it as a child when, growing up in Belfast, her mother took her “down south” to visit a friend on their beautiful farm in Borlin Valley. Ever since then she had talked about her dream of permanently moving to West Cork one day. Unfortunately, her mother passed away before it was possible to realise that vision. 

“I was studying Music Technology at South Eastern Regional College in Bangor (Co Down) where I learnt about music production, recording and sound engineering. After this I was DJ-ing and performing live electronica regularly in clubs and bars but my mother’s death made me stop and rethink where I wanted to be.”

She decided to revisit West Cork to see if she could fulfil the dream of living there one day. After the move, she spent two years wondering if she would ever return to music. During this period she found a teacher who taught her about the breath, emotions and herself in relation to the world. It gave her time to settle and process some of her grief while learning to face into and release some of the blocked emotions. This also helped to unblock her singing voice. 

Eager to get back into music, she discovered the wealth of creativity in the West Cork community. “It was amazing to come across so many creative people,” she smiles. “Musicians, visual artists, designers, writers, holistic teachers. Sometimes all rolled into one person.” In 2019, she started a band called The Bella Coola. A funky phone recording on YouTube of the band practicing a song called ‘What Where Why Who?’ in a garage sounds promising, tight, and well-oiled. But this was just as the pandemic broke out and the band scattered, which forced, or allowed, Katrina to carve out her own path.

As a musician and singer-songwriter she has gone solo. Using a loop pedal and guitar, she weaves intricate tapestries of sound and rhythm underneath haunting, melodic vocals. Her main focus is on original material. An interest that extends far beyond her own songs. Two years ago she decided to showcase the local singer-songwriters that she found in abundance in West Cork, “People who pour their heart and soul into their music.” This led to a series of gigs in a celebrated pub called Arundels by the Pier, in super-scenic Ahakista, on Sheep’s Head. It also features more established songwriters such as Luka Bloom, Polly Barrett, Leevy, Emma Langford, Clare Sands, Rónán Ó’Snodaigh and Myles O’Reilly.

Katrina organises the concerts under the heading ‘KIN’. Not an acronym but a reference to kin, as in family, relations, kindred spirits. The performance space is an intimate setting, upstairs in the Loft. Each concert is allocated its own featured set designer, with the brief to creatively transform the small stage and delight the audience. There may be lights, flowers, coloured shapes, representations of animals or the suggestion of a woodland glade. Last October, the musician, illustrator and (coastal) forager Samuel Arnold Keane (aka Samyel) created a backdrop for Luka Bloom’s concert using seaweed. 

On Wednesday, January 18, Kin will stage its first event of 2025, some two years after it kicked off. Molly O’Mahony, Rubymoon Hilliard, Brian Leach, Samyel, Ambient Pizza and Katrina O’Kane share equal billing. This “beautiful show of original music” is jointly organised by KIN and Rudaí Nua (Irish for New Things), which is the name of another series of songwriter sessions in a different location, O’Brien’s Pub in Ballydehob. As Katrina writes on Instagram (@kin.westcork), “Rudaí Nua and KIN have been hosting evenings to give space and appreciative ears to local or travelling songwriters and musicians at all levels, to share their new songs, their creativity, talent and passion in a nurturing environment.” Instead of in Arundels, the concert will be held in Ahakista Church, a larger venue. It is a fundraiser for the Rushnachara National School next door, in association with the Ahakista Community Association.  

Molly O’Mahony (who is also spearheading Rudaí Nua, together with Samyel) will be playing on the 18th. Now 33, Molly is a prolific singer-songwriter who started her singing career in Dublin after college, at the age of 20, in the four-piece band Mongoose, which produced two albums. Locked down in the family home near Ballydehob during the pandemic, with her siblings, some of whom are also musicians, she started to work in earnest on her debut solo album, ‘The House of David’, which was crowdfunded and released in November 2022. It is still available on Bandcamp and sounds stunning. The songs were polished, as she played them live (to the extent possible under Covid) but they revealed their true colours in the studio. Her lyrics do not seem out-of-the-ordinary at first glance but she gives glimpses of an inner world to listeners that is both startling and very relatable. ‘The cogs of contrition working overtime’ (In-between) or ‘… the light illuminates something unseen’ (a line from her song Velvet Morning).

She applied a similar process to her upcoming second album, which was financed via Kickstarter, with the goal reached around Christmas. 

Before going into the Black Mountain Studio in Dundalk to record with four musicians and a producer, in early January, she played Levis Corner House in Ballydehob on December 28. Apart from the occasional guest musician (including her sister), on the stage, it was just Molly and her acoustic guitar, played deftly and naturally, as if it was part of her body. Emotionally, she was utterly compelling; in control and at the same time, open and vulnerable. 

That is how she wants to be, she says, speaking from the studio. “Big, big, big feelings inspire me. Be it love or grief or overwhelm or despair. These songs allow me to express myself.” Collectively, the audience seemed to track the same frequencies. Up to and including the moment when tears appear in Molly’s eyes, as she sings ‘Blue-eyed girl’, dedicated to her young niece, a toddler. “I can always feel when the audience is resonating with what I am putting out. And the more vulnerable I can be, the more rewarding is the experience for both parties, the audience and myself. It’s not always easy. That night in particular, I didn’t really have a choice. I felt such love for that little girl but also sadness due to the realisation that suffering is inevitable in this world. The interaction is like a conversation, an exchange between raw emotion and compassion. I try to reveal different aspects of myself. As a performer, authenticity is my main concern. Writing offers a kind of catharsis. I did Gestalt therapy for a while. The idea was to try to complete processes, finish unfinished business, and find some sort of closure. I guess that, for me, songs are a way to push through energy that is stuck.” 

KIN and Rudaí Nua, Saturday, January 18, 7pm, Ahakista Church, tickets €15 https://tiny.cc/kinxrudainua

To join the mailing list, email kinwestcork@gmail.com