Atlantic Tales - Emer O Flaherty - Episode 242

0:00Good evening and welcome to this week's episode of Atlantic Tales. When we'll meet Ennis Born, singer-songwriter, musician, multi-instrumentalist and passionate Guelgore, Emer O'Flaherty. Emer O'Flaherty was born and raised in Ennis County, Claire. She spent some time away for college and a year in Canada, Emer all returned to her hometown. Despite being surrounded by music growing up and developing a passion for singing and playing,

1:04it was law she decided to pursue in college. Emer found, however, that she kept being drawn back to music. Her other great passion is the Irish language, and she works for Iron Road, Iron as Ificok Guelgore. She is an award-winning singer-songwriter, musician and multi-instrumentalist, and is currently touring with her debut album Goodie Shaw. I went to school here in Ennis in the Holy Family and then in community college for my leaving cert. I loved it and I suppose music has always been a part of my life, except I suppose maybe after my leaving cert, I decided to study law in Galway and in New York Galway and both music always kind of kept coming back up to the fore. I suppose it was from, I actually remember one particular event that I was asked to play for, with the Lytton Deb, the Lytton Debation Society in Galway, that they said, oh, you play piano, don't you? And I said, I do, and they said, would you play background music for an event that we're having? And I said, God, I'd be delighted to. And I came, all the music I'd been playing as a teenager

2:08that I'd kind of given a break to for a few years. So it was the radio heads, the Elton Giants, all of those and it got me back into playing piano and I was 2021 and I've never really stopped since then. But I suppose growing up music was, I was part of my life, like I started playing piano when I was seven. I went to Mary Gilroy, she was my first piano teacher and then Journaline Stackpool, who was in the end's brass band at the time. But she moved to Lim Ricken when she moved. I had Carmen Griffin for my senior grades up to my senior cert and I came back to music while I was in college and I ended up going to the rather Academy on Saturdays so I used to get the bus at half past seven on the Saturday morning and arrive in Western Role for about 20 past 12 and do my theory class and I had about two hours of a break and I'd always sneak over to the National Gallery and do maybe an hour while looking at the art, come back to my actual

3:10practical class and get the bus home again and I did that for like two years on Saturdays and I absolutely loved it and that was when the bus was like nearly five hours from in the and just up to bars and us for two minutes and it was every Saturday and I loved it. Did you find the studying the piano in particular because that can be tough to integrate in all of that. You're good teachers but was that tough? Did that take up a lot of your time? It did I suppose when I was in primary school because I loved piano. I actually the nerd in me loved doing these exams. What I didn't always love was doing the practice in the rehearsal every day and to be fair you need to be doing a good bit of that and I as I say I enjoyed the exam so much I think I did grades one to five in probably two and a half years and I just I loved it but I yeah as I say I loved the exams but I hate it when I felt I had learned something to have to go back and re-break it down which is what you have to do to be fair because then you learn it better the second time and it stays in the Muslim or even more but it did take up a lot of

4:12time but I loved it and like I used to spend my summer holidays playing music playing piano and then I had since I suppose when I was about 12 because I realized while I loved this piano there isn't a piano over her you go so I realized I needed to be portable so I fell in love with this as a reflux at that point and my mother's sister in just as I balanced low in place called Larnstown I used to go to her for a week of my summer holidays every year and one of the things we used to do was she used to bring me to bingo in contrarian and in tina and in one of the sun denights in tina didn't I win and I had two lines in a full house and I won enough to put towards a silver flute so my parents said right we'll give you the balance so myself and my father went into a hardy-gurdy music shop that was in town at the time and when we went in we came home with a silver flute so that's when I added the flute to my collection so I was playing as I say flute and piano for many many years and then I went down the route of studying law and then

5:14they kind of took back seat but then as I said it was being asked to play background music that all the music that I had played especially on Saturday nights because I was one of the the as was the younger people in my class going to school so I was never of age to go to the greens or do anything so I used to take out my mother's records and put them on top of the piano or when I got a CD player I do it with CDs and sit down and basically play all popular music and learn them just by listening to them and I loved I loved doing that in a session night so all of that came back to me and and as I said then I went on to study piano in the wireless academy and I loved us. I was studying music though after secondary school an option was there much music in the community college? Oh there was and I have to say we had a wonderful music teacher I did music to juniors with her Mrs. Tuhi she was fabulous and she gave us all actually an amazing love for jazz that was really where her heart was and I suppose we played as much as we could in school

6:16and did the exams and everything and played practical for the exams but yes it was kind of when I became an adult I suppose that I really got to play what I wanted to play and I mentioned that I studied law and while I was studying law I was doing my black hole exams actually I was worn away from going to black hole to be a slister of this the age entrance exams and I got a job in Claire County Council promoting Irish language because Irish was also a huge love for me growing up and I applied for the job got the job and did it for 12 years and never went back to blow and I suppose where my love for Irish came from so it's fit to footage and go really was from my father so my father was from Russellville in Colomira and he was teacher here in firstly the ins vocation school and then in St. London so a lot of people would have known him and quite he never set out to teach me Irish so it became our thing so like the first time I was ever on stage I was five and this was Finn and Hinscher I always remembered over in Koshnaona and

7:21I had a poem it was something to do with the weather and I always remember having to bring a little raincoat and an umbrella and I absolutely loved it and I was only five and but it kind of became our thing every year so he'd help me learn poems, learn songs, learn the scale of the storytelling and do all the different competitions and it became our thing every year and we just we enjoyed it so much it just happened really been honest and as I mentioned earlier that I loved doing the exams and stuff in the piano I loved the competitions because I actually loved getting the chance to be on stage and then the fact that like he was teaching me he was giving me all these beautiful songs and these beautiful poems like I learned Irish without realizing I was learning Irish really and there were phrases even that he taught me then that are still with me and so when you know they come back to you in context later on in life that you know you know why it's right and you remember when you learned it but unfortunately for me Daddy got sick when I was a teenager and he passed away and I was only 14 and I missed him terribly

8:24I still miss him terribly I'll be honest even though it's like 30 he's 31 years past away but and it's actually beautiful when I do still meet students that he had because they still will talk to me with such a love for what he taught them and the way he taught them and the type of person he was and it's lovely that he still is remembered for that from so long ago and but I suppose I made the decision at that time in my life that was our kind of connection one of our huge connections and I decided because he was no longer here I wasn't going to lose that so I made a conscious choice at that point I was going to keep my Irish and I did so when I went to college and go away we did have the option of studying Irish part-time which I did do and I just didn't find it hard and I just thought God I really like this so then as I say when the job came up in Claire County Council and to to promote the Irish language I was looking up to get it and I did it for 12 years and for me it was bringing together all I loved because A it was primarily

9:28through Irish or our bilingual but also I got to work with like wonderful people such as Shivan in Marquay the county arts officer we always did loads for Shaqt and Guailge every year the library service I think one of the most magical services we have in the county and getting Irish out there and I always felt that Irish through the arts was the most beautiful way to get a language out there because people like myself were learning it and using it without necessarily realizing and it was it was just it gives you the vehicle to really appreciate the beauty of a language and like for instance through work that I did with the Claire Place Names Committee when I was in Claire County Council you know it was all to do with preserving field names and working with the townland names and making sure that the developments all had names that were appropriaged to where they were from and I suppose eight or ten of them probably ended up being in Irish not all of them but it was very important to reflect the history and the tradition behind that and I loved that

10:29type of work so I mean I love when people and have a love like that far the language because it is all around us every day you know it's on our streets it's in our tunes it's in our our names of so many of our people and everything and it's just lovely to know the reasons behind that are you confident in worth that the whale gate is making a comeback that we would have had a fairly substantial gale talks area in West Claire and many people are probably educators to Irish I hope so I mean the Irish language publications in print media you know even on pop air was launched they're just in the last 18 months and I do feel there's a lot of people and a lot of people like me that are writing in Irish because obviously while it's really really important to you know you have to learn from the past to know the present in the future and that's always my motto but to know where it came from and to use it but to make it relevant to know and that it isn't all about the past either and I think having people writing and just using it and speaking it every

11:29single day is how to keep it alive and I think there are definitely more of people doing that I definitely think there's more of that happening as I get older I mean I don't get older but I definitely do see more of it and it's definitely easier to go out and to meet people and if you want to do business or live your daily life it is definitely getting easier it's still not perfect but we are getting there so I definitely think but for me personally and through the art will always be the most powerful way to get people thinking about Irish you had completed your last studies but how close were you to actually progressing into a career of law I was actually one exam away from going to black hole to do the professional practice course there's eight entrance exams and I had seven of the eight gosh I had company law left to do and I had finished my undergrad my undergrad was Bachelor of Corporate Law with French and my post-grad was CLLV so I had done my four years got my two degrees and had seven of the eight exams but the closer I got to going to black hole

12:35I just I felt it wasn't far me and what just I totally respect the study of it and everybody I met through it were just wonderful it just wasn't for me and looking back like even over my four years in Galway the subjects that stood out to me the most were intellectual property law and I think it was constitutional law and human rights law and environmental law that they were the four out of four years and so and I suppose the intellectual property was certainly because I could study music copyright which was bringing me back to music again anyway you know so I knew it wasn't 100% me and of any of the decisions I've made in life I definitely think it was the right one not to continue but I'll always be thankful for the people I met because because I've some of my best friends in this world and I never would have met them had I knock on to Galway but I had been niggling actually because you had gone to the final hurdle the eleventh hour as per say yeah so close yeah one left what's longer I guess I'm a bit stubborn too when I start

13:35something I kind of have to finish it but then I knew when I'd finished this particular exam was company law actually for all the world and I continue I'd be going there and I just felt you know this isn't for me the newer I got to going the more I knew it wasn't far me and as it happened kind of the planets aligned at that time as well because my mother actually took ill her on the same time and I knew I needed to be in this to look after her because it was only the two of us since my father had passed away and I don't have brothers and sisters and just everything kind of happened in that way and in us was where I needed to be and I was here and I am very glad that I was here and and so that's really that's how it happened you were looking in a way that you could keep up your music even during your studies oh absolutely absolutely and as I say really it was when I finished college finished the post-grad that I really got back to playing music which is when I started to take the boss to Dublin and go to the railers academy and then moving back

14:36to in this I joined in this musical society and to be on stage for I was really lucky to be in an awful lot of their productions but then other years there were maybe needing a piano player or a rehearsal pianist and they said to me well Imra you play piano would you like to do it and I thought my god actually yes I loved it and then I met some wonderful people who are great friends of mine to this day through endless musical society and then one of them had been she's singing she's doing a lot of events and a lot of weddings and Mary Haley and she asked me what I accompanied her for a lot of things she was playing for so she made me play even more and I mean make in a really nice way I should give me the opportunity to keep playing and to keep learning new repertoire and that really was I'll throw up my twenties and probably half of my thirties and I did a lot of of playing with Mary and playing with different groups over time and then I suppose in 2013 I got the chance to teach Irish in Canada which was really lovely there's a

15:38wonderful organisation called the Ireland Canada University Foundation and they're the equivalent of people and often here of Fulbright for America but the ICUF is the equivalent of Fulbright for Canada and they advertised an open call for people to apply to be considered to be a TagScore girl in Canada and I was lucky enough to get an opportunity to go up and teach Irish in New Brunswick in a lovely city called Frederickton for a year and so that that was what moved me away from from in my first time I suppose being away away since I'd been in college and I loved my year in Canada so while I had a lovely class in the university in St Thomas University I also got to teach music and teach Irish music while I was there and it was just lovely and the connections that I made there like were still great friends and go from back to visit each other it's been really lovely and Canada was just it's just such a gorgeous year of my life I have to say. Did you do any other travelling? Would you know what I started to do was I go away actually

16:42at Christmas time because after my particularly after my mother passed away I didn't really particularly want to be around for Christmas so one year I went to Cuba for three weeks and another year I went to Peru for three and a half weeks and it was it was lovely because it's a different kind of Christmas and different traditions like in Cuba for instance it was very much Christmas Eve was the big day and I know in in Peru we spent Christmas Eve in the desert we've gone to San Borging actually and woke up Christmas morning and we were all camped out in the desert so I did things like that some years for Christmas and it was lovely but other than that it's been kind of trips either to play music or like perform and and say meet some other people that I was in Canada with and stuff I'd love to do more in the future and not really possible at the moment for the lowest of reasons and we had a little girl just over seven months ago and the love for her lives and yeah until she's a little bit bigger and definitely my feet will be in this for the

17:45next while. Coming up we'll hear more from Emre O'Flaherty about her love of music and the Irish language and when she began to write her own music where she has combined both passions. From your dreams tomorrow I'll rise you from your dreams. Paul Bagashti reggae, coat the bushtiery, cure me a lake in a deep, mallard drum is slower in a love, smidoo or era hike. Welcome back to Atlantic Tales.

18:54Emre O'Flaherty is an award-winning singer-songwriter and musician from Ennis County Claire. She has had two particular passions from a young age, music and the Irish language. Despite her raw form music she didn't pursue it as a subject at university. Emre opted to study law instead and was just one exam from progressing to black hole in Dublin to complete a professional practice course. She decided however that career wasn't for her and a life-changing decision was on the horizon. After completing her law studies in Galway, Emre had the opportunity to travel to and work in the United States. So after I finished the LLB in Ennui Galway I was lucky enough to be one of six people from Ireland to get the opportunity to partake in what was called then the Young Leaders Program that's been renamed the Washington Ireland Program since and basically there was part of us from Northern Ireland and the Republic who got to go to Washington DC. Stay with

19:59families for two months over the months of June to August and work as interns in very governmental and non-governmental and charitable organisations throughout Washington DC and that was it was a wonderful summer I have to say. I was working actually in the Assistant General Council for Legislation and I was working on Independence Avenue right across the road from all the Smithsonian Museums 12 of which were free at the time so every lunchtime I used to go out and do like a room or two of one of the museums and I absolutely loved it and one that will all have a stay with me was it was called Piano 300 an exhibition of Liberate and his pianos and there was a rhinestone encrusted piano and belonged to him on display and I just I think that was really the day that I saw that and I brought a friend of mine and to come and see it as well and when we were steered at this piano I was that was kind of the DJ for me that I just said oh my god this

21:05is really what I want to be doing and that was really when I suppose the light bulb went off and I knew I knew my love was always music but I guess I probably tried to suppress it if you like and I do always remember standing in front of that piano going wow you know and it hit me hit me you know but it was a beautiful summer and I mean I learned I learned so much while I was out there as I say we were summarizing legislation before it was put to the Senators to be voted on so it was very responsive to work but it was it was brilliant and so when I finished there I moved back home to Innes and that's when I started working in Laircraft County. You started in Tera County Council it was a date shall we say that bonds leave you quickly yeah exactly yeah it was September 10th 2001 and the next day obviously everything happened in America so I always remember when I started in Tera County Council yet how did that job come about by the way? it was actually I had applied before I went to America and basically I was on a panel at the time

22:08to come in and work in I got I was actually recruited on a clerical panel and then it was while I was doing that role that they advertised for if you could go Ilga at the time and I thought wow that sounds really interesting and I'll have a goal put my name in never expected to get the job and then did it for 12 years and enjoyed it but it seems as well though either when you traveled whether it was Canada or Washington you were never far from culture first of all but never far from either of your love's music and go Ilga? No never. With any intentional art did that just happen? I don't know I think sometimes when you go away more of your real self comes out and I know it might sound like a bit of a cliche but I know when like when you're away it's nearly easier to be Irish and do the things that you really want to do like and I'll give you a very funny example I love music in every form but it never quite made it as far as my feet so I love us say like I stopped at my knees and I admire people who can dance and just I watched the

23:08patterns and the formations think I got it loved to be able to dance because I did love dancing when I was very very small but then music took over but when I was in Canada I joined what's called the ICCA and B such as the Irish Canadian Cultural Association of New Brunswick and the first evening they had a gathering they were going teaching us a session and this is we're going to watch this of this session being danced where was the session recorded? Of course now. I hope the garter old and here with me looking at it over in New Brunswick recognising everybody and saw the stage and I was like that's such and such and he plays the drums and I was like this is question now and then she was oh yes they did and I was like that's two minutes from my house so and it took me to go all the way to Canada to see that now sadly the poor woman her work was still caught out for her but you know so I did learn all I could do and she was very very patient for sure still I will always be in awe of dancers I have to say and sadly I'm not one of them and I never will be but I really I love them I love watching dance and then I came home and I was

24:12very fortunate to get a beautiful job it was a three-year job with music generation here in and it was it was really lovely and worked with some of probably the most beautiful people I ever met in the world odd musicians and delivering music education programs to children and young people throughout the county and it was it was really really lovely and from there then I went on to I was also very lucky to get another lovely role which was the general manager of on Paiverk in Galvesti I was a theater manager first for about six months and then the role of general manager came up after that so I was there until October of 2020 and obviously we all know what happened in 2020 and so the the theater actually closed until it was able to actually have real live audience audiences they didn't do the online experience so it meant that the theater actually closed for a while

25:12but coming full circle I'm now back in on Paiverk but as a board member so it's actually really really it's it's lovely and yeah my heart as I say Irish language arts is is where is it's you know so working there was it was a real privilege and it's the same back on the board spend many years learning music piano particularly a flute later on yeah when did you start singing oh my god I started singing that's it I've been singing forever if I've been honest like we're here in my living room right now which is my childhood living room and when I was small the television was here roughly where I'm sitting now and beside it I used to stand inside the window and I used to sing along to top of the pubs and I could remember it so clearly and then during the summer months I used to get a broomstick and I'd stick it into the ground outside and take my skipping rope and wind it around the top of the the broom so that it would stay standing and obviously I I've had it in my head I understood tension of cables even at that stage because I had the skipping rope wound around the handle of the brush and I used to sing out the back garden and

26:17yeah they were my first memories of singing and I'd say it was only about four or five you seem to have a love for all kinds of music top of the pubs you mentioned that person who had the love of jazz was that important to you that you appreciated and liked several genres of music to be honest I love every genre of music and like my mother when I was growing up my mother used to love all the classic classic music and all the operas so she'd have a listen to regaletto and verty and everything and I loved that and she'd put on the music from Vienna on New Year's Eve you know so I was listening to classical all the time and then my father was actually ironically a dance teacher as well as being a secondary school teacher and I've mentioned I am not a dancer but he was also a singer and he was an accordion player now sadly I never got to hear and play the accordion because when I was growing up here he didn't actually have an accordion to play so I never actually got to hear him but I've heard from other people and his brothers and sisters who since passed away that he was a beautiful player so I would love to have heard him but he used

27:22to listen to a huge amount of traditional Irish music and singing and because as I mentioned he was a beautiful singer and he taught me a lot of my Irish songs but my two aunts were also Shandos singers as well and one of whom would be fairly well known on Yeb and Wattu from Ness and Cantica Lear and the other was Trassas Nicarthor who actually worked with a lot of singers who won at Iraqis in the Belga and the coronerade and that so I have another lot of music in my family so I suppose yeah I used to love then listening to popular music and obviously learning my classical in my grades and different things but as I said my mother certainly gave me love for classical music as well and our teacher Mrs. Tuhi and Secretary of School had us all listening to jazz so I suppose I got a flavour of everything really and I was very lucky but I suppose going back to my time in Clarecon to Council we set up a Kaley band with the staff so there was 11 or 12 of us

28:24that used to play when there would be like special occasions are coming up with different things we all actually went to Brussels one year to represent Ireland at Celtic Connections and it was just the most fabulous experience and it was from playing with that group actually that and I while I love my traditional music and I do play a lot of traditional piano I don't necessarily play in a 100% traditional Irish piano style and what I really love is throwing in the accidents and throwing in the 6th and the 9th in the sharps that are coming from jazz so I felt like my accompaniment style is kind of jazz and tried coming together and then I suppose to make a long story short I started to write music and maybe my early 30s or so and anyone from in us and beyond you remember the lovely brandens that used to be at the top of Auckland Street and Declan was so supportive of people who wrote their own music so on a Thursday night they I think

29:27was maybe once a month or so there was a session called the Ginger Jam sessions and it was for people who wrote music or wanted to literally just jam and I started to go to us and I really enjoyed playing even for something maybe one or two pieces and it was such an eclectic night a variety of different styles but mostly written by the people and that were performing and you know if you're if somebody said you would would you do another two next month sometimes all you need is a goal so I actually started writing a lot more and that's really what sent me down that route so I suppose after about maybe a year or two I realized I actually had a collection of songs in English now they were in English at the time and I put them together and I realized that most of them had three word titles so I put them together and called it Life in Three Words and brought it to the Edinburgh Fringe just myself and the piano and that we went and did ten nights and and as anyone who's been to Fringe I mean three quartises of the work is being

30:30out flying I mean I was wearing the posters I had and this is me now showing my age I had my CD player in my backpack blaring myself one down the royal mile in Edinburgh and handing out my flyers and I always remember these two locally gentleman one day and I was handing the flyer and they said to me they looked and obviously I looked slightly different because I was obviously tired from from all the playing and there's an oh thanks for the flyer is she only good do you know and I said yeah yeah she's not too bad and then they were walking down the street and I was saying I saw the elbow going that was who we were talking to you it was just very funny but yeah you do anything to get an audience I wore the posters another person stopped me one day I was going over walking over Waverly Bridge I think it was and they were like sorry there's a poster of a lady on your back it's stuck to you and I said oh yeah I know I put it there that's me you know so you'll do anything and so that was that was my first time doing the fridge and then I went back for a second year was in 17 and yeah I mean a different collection of songs

31:35and I loved it and in between that I discovered Prague print out in the Czech Republic and that was absolutely beautiful altogether because it's a much smaller festival and like I always kind of play to I like small intimate audiences because you can get people involved in a way that they're moving not necessarily expecting and that was when I started to add maybe one Irish song to the session and then I added two and when I went back to do Prague the second time I realized and from getting talking to people in the audience that they were actually coming because and it wasn't just because you know I was from Ireland but it was because they wanted their families to hear Irish and hear Irish live and being sung and the beautiful language that it was and it just made me think I thought god okay I'm not just something here and I started to write more and more in Irish and the more you do like anything else easier it comes to you and I kind of came to a point where I haven't really written much a new repertoire in English for quite a few years it just comes to

32:38me in Irish more so that's really where that came from and that's that's mainly what I do now is I write songs in Irish but I also write instrumental music and I love writing instrumental music because it kind of to me it says the things that maybe you can't put into words and you leave the door open for like the musicians who play it to feel and portray what they're feeling from the music that you've written put in their way and it's kind of magic so I'm very lucky and in the like it to do a little bit of everything that I really like and mainly through ours coming up we'll hear about Amher's debut album Godisha which she launched last year and is currently touring venues across the region to coincide with Chakta Nagoya Liga

33:55Welcome back to Atlantic Tales Amher O'Flaherty is a singer-songwriter musician and multi-instrumentalist from Edith's County Claire she has always been passionate about music and the Irish language she studied law in Galway but found that career wasn't for her and a life-changing decision would soon follow as a mature student she returned to NUI Galway to complete a higher diploma in drama and later a master's in media at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick after returning to Edith's permanently

35:01Amher joined Edith's musical society and was a member of Edith's players for many years she is currently on maternity leave from her position as Ithaca Guelga with Earn Road Aaron while studying for a master's in translation and editing she has managed to juggle busy personal and professional lives with the support of her husband Mike Higgins. Amher is currently touring with her debut solo album Godisha released in April 2025. First of all the title came from the fact that I have been playing with people and with wonderful people for probably over 20 years at this stage and the amount of times I was being asked do you know I liked that but where can I hear it again and so it would be there might be the ad recording maybe we're on YouTube or whatever but people would say to me do you have an album do you have anything I didn't have any I didn't have an AP I didn't have anything and so the title Godisha basically means up to now or on till now

36:05because literally it is kind of a representation of everything and everybody that I've been playing with over the last 20 years and because it's been so long coming that's actually where the title came from. I should explain the album is laid out in that it's laid out to be a day so you start off the very first piece on which is called a Gyarroon which is the story of a bird who during Covid times couldn't hear himself when the traffic came back on the roads and he was very very annoyed that he couldn't do the one thing that he had to do early morning which was wake this person up from their sleep because the person couldn't hear him and he couldn't hear himself and the album basically goes through different things that could happen at different times of the day. The last piece actually being a second last piece being a soon-tree which is a lullaby and the very last piece is actually bird interrupted which is the English and it's the only English sound on it of a Gyarroon so it comes full circle so you go back to the start of the day again and that's

37:09how I actually structured it but that particular piece started life and that's the reason I it's the only English one on it but it actually did start life as an English poem because in 2021 I was looking off to get the opportunity to partake and it was a game mentor, it was a mentoring scheme funded by Forest Naguelga and I got to write a series of poems which I then wrote a accompanying music for and I was mentored by the lovely Dureen and the Kineja from County Kerry and she's been a great source of inspiration to me since a beautiful lady and I wrote that under her mentorship and that actually started as an English poem which as I was kind of reciting it and getting it into my head it felt like music belonged naturally with it so I actually set that to music and then I ended up translating so it's the only one that is actually translation but then I translated that to Irish and now pretty much never performed the English either but that's where that one came from then another one is Green Goof I am a terrible

38:15woman for writing about nature so I've mentioned a Gyarroon about a single bird so Green Goof is about a collection of birds or a marmoration so it's a person watching a beautiful spectacle and trying to figure out because in a marmoration they say there's no leader and they're trying to ward off the enemy they feel as an enemy presence but you don't know who's leading you don't know where they're going to go what direction how long they're going to stay for so it's watching the mystery of a marmoration and it's called Green Goof because they say that one of the best places in Europe is a town in Jotland in Denmark that if you want to be almost guaranteed to see a marmoration that's the place to go and the Danes call the marmoration sort the soul and I hope I'm pronouncing that properly which is Blackson which is Green Goof that's where that comes from and I suppose a very special one I should mention is called Pfeiter which is Ghost and it was a song that I got to play with the lovely Paddy Malkahi and Angelo Hart who I had originally met I mentioned Brandon's

39:19early on I met Paddy through Brandon's all those years ago and we'd often play together and we played together the three of us for the Pan Celtic and represented Ireland in Carlaw back in 2017 and we played bass drums and piano and we actually won and the first time Ireland had won I think in 10 or 11 years and then they went on a spree because we they another group won in 18 and 19 and it was lovely to be a part of that so that was Pfeiter and it's about I suppose a person when something is niggling them in the middle of the night and what might it be and if they follow us what might happen and what it is for that person whether it's maybe something they haven't done something they need to do a thought that's annoying them and that's what the Pfeiter actually is so it's a different thing for every single person and then I have a couple of instrumentals in there and what I mentioned was the sewing tree and I actually wrote that only last year for the lovely

40:20difficult that came to our lives in July and the 14th of July last year, Ely and I wrote it to in the hope that it would help her go to sleep and sometimes it works and that's our sewing tree I had a chance thanks to the lovely folks and clear arts office to spend some time in the Tyrol Gautry Centre in Manahan in 2024 and that was where I wrote Stasian Trianok and Greengoth the one that I mentioned so different pieces that they've different stories but everything on that CD has been written in the last maybe eight to ten years and the older English ones as I mentioned they didn't make the cost this time but I might maybe do something with some of them in the future who knows they're there they're there in the in the back of my mind and probably on a heritage

41:22I've been very very lucky in the and very very thankful actually I have to say because every single person I asked to be involved whether it be the musicians and Anna who did the art people lovely Quinton who came into this living room and recorded us all live every single person that I asked to be involved I said yes and each time I was blown away because I said really you want to do it you've no bother and we I think it was about 14 of us all together when you go from art and layout and mixing and lovely jacket and he did the mastering and everything for us how did I select the musicians well first of all I mentioned Paddy he's probably the person I'm playing with the longest Paddy Malkahi and we'd been doing at Tunday Irish Pieces and Angelo Heart and then since

42:232002 the lovely NSZone fabulous German Fweetia had put together a collective known as Lucas Augustocus we were singing the old Irish language songs of County Claire and because of that I got to know the lovely Groniacotter Très Machenerle, Idel Vahann and Philip Fogerti and they are the other four musicians on the album and everybody plays at least one instrument and everybody sings and we just it was probably one of the most beautiful weekends I think in September of 2024 where we just moved into the living room here and as a second recorded and he said it was the largest mobile recording studio that he'd ever had he'd do one or two people and he did six of us for that and it was the most beautiful weekend it was glorious whether we took photographs under the harsh chestnut tree out in the back garden of all of us it was just magic and and then as opposed it was 90 percent finished I think at one piece left to do which was Our On The Lower

43:27which is it's one of the two on the album that I didn't write and Our On The Lower tells the story of a teacher who was moving from one of the islands and all his books fall into the water and he loses his life's work and I remember when I first heard it saying it was Kirill Hanwey who sang it on her queen album which was in lower here in Inns and I just without the door in tears because I just thought oh my god could you imagine that happened to somebody like your entire life's work and everything had ever written and obviously in that time you're talking 1800s all in ink gone and like I've mentioned my father a few times my father was a teacher my father was a collector of books and oh my god there's so many books in this house across all the different subjects he's to teach and I too clicked books and there's too many books in this house but in a lovely way but to me that was the reason I put Our On The Lower on the album because it kind of was an homage to him in that sense too but I lost my voice the morning I was to record

44:32Our On The Lower and I just said oh my god this is this album is never going to get finished now I was 90 percent of the way there and I had to wait two weeks for it to come back so to record the component was first and then sing over and then I just happened to be talking to the lovely Tim Collins because I took up Constitina I should say two years ago and he's our teacher and I love it and again I'm portable you know because when you're playing a piano you're looking for plugs you're looking for seeds you're looking for everything your Constitina you open your box and Tim is just the most beautiful teacher and I just happened to mention Tim my head this album and would they ever consider an album like that for the Constitine festival and he said absolutely and he came back to me and he said your launch is the 25th of April 2025 and I thought oh my god no it actually has to happen and so I would be eternally grateful to Tim and Oni Hensi I should say for all their kindness to us on that that is how the album got launched and it just it made us finish it and you know it was it was the most beautiful day actually

45:36over in St. Columbus in Bintan Street and we had a live performance with six of the seven of us had that played on it and we had Padre Jack as guest artist and it was just it was just a really really special afternoon and I'll always be grateful to everybody who came and everybody who played because it was just it was just magic and then it actually all happened is this lovely you're taking the album and thought positions on the road and again everybody said yes which is lovely so what we're actually doing is it's a slightly scaled down version of the album so there'll be three of us at every concert so well the reason we didn't obviously do it during 2025 was because as I mentioned the lovely Ali Higgins arrived to us in July of last year and so it was impossible to bring it on the road while she was just so small so we're doing six concerts over Shaktan Naveilge and this year so we have Glorinanna's we're in Conor Naveilge and Nina we're in the Limerick City Gallery I art gallery near the people's park we're in St. John's

46:41Theatre in the Stole we're in Balivorna in the lovely on the Koltura Dr. Rolanchick and we're in the studio of the Town Hall Theatre in Galway so it's all venues this side of the world everybody has been so kind to us I have to say and so helpful and so inviting but with our Shaktan Naveilge we'll be a good time to do so yes there'll be three of us as Philip and Gronja any Dale and myself and the lovely attain Macooie we'll be playing with us on two of those concerts as well so I'm with Ikzenem in Glor and so in there is Eran Inne on three-year-old Adjegh the Minimarte Mara Harley-Jeh and I don't know if you've heard of it but I'll come and I'll be there in the album for a while and I'll be showing you all the kind of reached-reveer of Neblina and I hope you enjoyed it and I'll be seeing you in the show and I hope you'll be able to come back to England in August and I hope you'll be able to come back and I would like to thank you for your support. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you enjoyed it.

48:06Star the shell, we heard a mint in my soul Down the shell, that there's a marvellous deline Iskjar gocholantachtra, eikav bolin Gorn mower do nindoch eile des and the heart of the train The frab mochrile haterscha, et d'aïvlinga antichig halma

49:21Svart feen, moch dee, dee, dee, dee, go, dee, scappe hee, Svi dee, dee, dee, cum, hee, cap, hee, Störz-viel, harz-viel, ge, banen, banen, Marvlau, fui, mae, yeen, Ith, wee, mee, seen, na dee, ke, er, woe, Rundschgale, isai, la, ko, se, wa, se, us, Mee, ge, da, wo, ch, tre, nee, Ba, fru, e, la, ko, er, mae, je, mee, G, wo, da, ko, s, f, kas, nee, Seen, fu, ch, d, a, ch, ral, ik, em, ba, la, mee, Gons, na, on, space,

50:24Go, you and later, s, a, ba, On, rank, gons, ba, w, s, a, se, na, Like a, s, foe, se, d, e, s, the, n, ar, b, d, G, wo, d, wee, mee, G, wo, e, je, la, d, e, la, mee, Gons, ba, w, s, a, gons, ba, On, rank, gons, ba, w, s, a, se, G, wo, d, e, s, tre, Mee, fru, mee, mee, On, rank, gons, ba, w, s, a, se, na, Like a, s, foe, mee, Is, mord, and course, and mar, n, Ag, s, co, s, l, mee, Mal, h, d, e, s, na, ha, gl, s, a,

51:26Er, n, g, r, e, ch, ral, no, ba, la, A, voy, gons, ba, na, mee, Gons, ba, w, h', em, e, Vinc, m'or, on, Legion, yor union, No, no, d,es, Ст, evin, la, oree, Yor' n e ly 15, eer, Bav, d, or, he, fl hiin, spaih, and space, unferm your own, and gas the jazz, Oh, what a hero blast the yard, Oh, grower, make fray, please, that you wash, God, y'all won't the face. Scud in my small room,

52:26Okay, grow, there's me, snuck with it, say, in the air that I got, God, bro, it's a game. Maloo, there's an angle, y'all, more loin to reach the hustle arm, and your hand will tell. Maloo, there's an angle, y'all, more loin to reach the hustle arm, and gas the jazz, Oh, grower, make fray, please, that you wash, God, bro, it's a game. Maloo, there's no problem.