f58

Oh Vagabondage!

From busking to the Folk Awards, Cara Gibney traces the progress of the Mac Gloinn brothers who make up Ireland’s Ye Vagabonds.

Y

e Vagabonds. A couple of Irish brothers. One generation play- ing in the here and now. Capa- ble and nuanced carriers of a flame ignited eras ago. I saw

them perform last night in Belfast – strings and harmonies and harmonium drone – singing their own words and rendering for us their own take on the old ones. As they played, a thin veil swayed between the then and now. There was Appalachian and Irish, folk revival, and so much more. Couched as the songs were in a timeless belonging, they were sieved through the 21st-century lens of a new generation.

With the English and Gaeilge har- monies of Brían and Diarmuid Mac Gloinn, the music of Ye Vagabonds offers a warm mix of tender and multi-layered. Rich with guitar, fiddle, bouzouki, man- dolin and banjo, the duo’s instruments layer more harmony, create dynamics, set the moss-soft tone. They’ve toured with Glen Hansard, Roy Harper and Lisa Hanni- gan. After a 2015 EP, they released their self-titled debut album last year, and their interpretation of the album’s Low- lands Of Holland was nominated for the 2018 BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for Best Tra- ditional Track.

“The best version of that song we know is sung by an old family friend called Andrew Early from Arranmore,” Brían explained. “So, we would have loved to have brought home the award just to have given it to Andrew.” Alas, this time it was not to be, but that doesn’t take away from the importance of the nomination for the brothers. “It was a big boost to us after the album had been out for six months or so to get recognised on an international level for it. It was also a great thing to be nominated for a song which is so popular in Ulster the year that the folk awards were in Belfast.”

Photo: Olga Kuzmenko