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First Turn was released by Claddagh, a gap explained by his continu- ing education in Dundalk and Limerick and his determination to get everything absolutely right. Yet he’s still proud of The First Turn, not least because it includes his signature song, Creggan White Hare and Bill Caddick’s John O’Dreams.
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Since then he has become a regular at Dublin’s Góilin Singers Club, worked extensively with Comhaltas, accompanied numerous luminaries of Irish music (Martin Hayes, Danú, Dervish, Arty McGlynn included) and in 2013 he won the All-Ireland title for Best Singer when it was held in Derry.
He’s accumulated many heroes along the way… “Frank Harte, Jimmy Crowley – I loved that Stokers Lodge stuff – and Liam Weldon, he’s been a massive influence, and especially Donal Lunny when I started figuring out what the bouzouki was all about. And Andy Irvine. He loaned me one of his instruments at a festival in Finland recently and afterwards I said ‘You shouldn’t have lent me that instru- ment, Andy’ and he said ‘Why?’ and I said ‘Because I don’t want to give it back!’ He said ‘You don’t have to – just remember it’s mine!’”
Christy Moore, though, remains his ultimate inspiration. “I’ve met him a few times. He’s been down to Góilin Singers Club and he gives me a call sometimes and says ‘How’s the music treating you?’ and he’s given me loads of advice. He said ‘Try and be nice to everybody and always sing from the heart’. He’s great. I love watching him on stage.”
In 2015 he won the Danny Kyle Award at Celtic Connections fes- tival in Glasgow and a celebrated appearance on his return there in January was a key catalyst for the breakthrough that has followed. True Born Irishman has been a long time coming but, with the likes of Mike McGoldrick, Pat Daly, Tony Byrne and Robbie Walsh on board and tracks ranging from Van Dieman’s Land to The Unquiet Grave and Bogie’s Bonnie Belle, he’s justifiably proud of it.
“The ten songs on the album are really special to me,” he says.
“I go to different places and mull over the songs for a long time – I could sing them for months and if I don’t like what I’m hearing back, I set them aside. I check out different versions and I’ll only listen to recordings until I get the melody in my head and then I won’t listen any more. But it’s important to me to do songs I’m able to sing with just a bouzouki or a full band, but will pack the same punch unac- companied. Like Van Dieman’s Land. I do it on the album with cello and bass, choppy fiddle, banjo, guitar and backing vocals, but I could go into a singing session with no instruments and I think it would still make people stop and listen. The words alone are amazing. Really jaw-dropping. It’s part of history and no matter who you are, you’d stop and listen to that song. I think it’s important to be able to sing something both with or without instruments.”
Indeed, he’s very keen at some stage to record an unaccompanied album, though he wants to do lots of other things as well, including songwriting. “I’ve tried a few things but it’s hard to find the time to sit down and do it. Any time I’m free, I try to write a few lines.”
In the meantime he’s drawing on writers like Liam Weldon (My
Love Is A Well, Blue Tar Road), Shay Healey (This Town Is Not Your Own) and Fergus Russell (Pat Rainey) to add original songs to the traditional material. So powerful are a series of songs about trav- ellers I wrongly imagined he must have a traveller’s heritage – Liam Weldon’s Blue Tar Road in particular is a chillingly fierce song about a travellers’ protest in Dublin in 1959. Listening to it you suddenly understand why his final year Applied Music BA thesis was titled The Life, Times & Songs of Liam Weldon.
Yet he’s happy to opt for populism, too, if the occasion demands
it. He’s even been known to play Fields Of Athenry on demand. “If I’m at a party and somebody asks me to sing it, I’ll do it, no problem. I’d never refuse anybody a song if I knew it. I even learned The Part- ing Glass the other day. Seamus Begley does a gorgeous version of it. He sang it in Newfoundland and it was so beautiful it nearly made me cry. So I learned it. Maybe we’ll tackle Danny Boy next…”
The gig is brilliant. As we knew it would be. Whelan’s is bursting at the seams, the walls are shaking and the place rocks. Even the statue slumped over the bar is up and dancing on tables. Only Daoiri Farrell can do this.
daoiri.com F
is studies, research and sessions have subsequently taken him all over Ireland and elsewhere, but he’s now reaping the dividends with an ecstatic reaction to True Born Irishman and increasing demand for his services. It is seven years since his debut album The
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