A Collection of Songs in the Traditional & Sean-Nós Style

Drawn from several generations of unaccompanied traditional singers, these are freshly recorded and collected, aside from Rosie Stewart’s ‘Jug of Punch’ and Sarah Ghriallais’ ‘An Sceilpín Draighneach’, which have appeared on earlier albums.

The majority are recordings done on the singer’s phones, or otherwise captured in kitchens, sitting rooms, upstairs rooms, pub rooms. As such, it’s a direct and raw transfusion from the underbelly of Irish singing traditions, with a focus on the melodic ornamentation of sean nós.

Take Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin’s account of ‘Eileanóir na Rún’ (Eileanóir of the Secrets), which dates from the 15th century and is one of the oldest love songs in the sean nós style, recorded in Galway’s Stiúideo Cuan, upstairs in its green room, which must be one of this world’s great echo chambers. Further in, Méabh Meir channels the song spirits of Jeannie Robertson and Belle Stewart for ‘Queen Among the Heather’, and the great Irish Traveller singer and storyteller Thomas McCarthy is captured in full flow at the Cobblestone pub in Smithfield, Dublin, singing ‘The Wicklow Mountains High’. A Collection of Songs closes with the stunning voice of Connemara singer Sarah Ghriallais on ‘An Sceilpín Draighneach’ (The Hawthorn Bush), a song of love so unrequited it may haunt you to your grave.