Excellent new versions of Irish folk songs that keep the flame of Irish history and pride alive.
Damien Dempsey is a well-known Irish folk musician who has supported, for example, Sinead O’Connor, Bob Dylan and The Levellers. Holywell is his eleventh album, and its genesis came when Dempsey made a list of fifty ballads and folk standards that he loved, and that meant something to him. He then went into the studio “with longtime producer and collaborator John Reynolds to see what songs jumped out and suited his voice” and has produced an album with versions of twelve of them.
It is traditional Irish folk with no great surprises, but done to a very high standard. Dempsey has a lovely, smooth, serene voice, and he drafted in what he describes as “some of the best players in the world” to back him up. Regular collaborator, Eamonn De Barra, played whistle and bodhrán, and he suggested two gifted young players, Cathal Ó Curráin (fiddle and bouzouki) and Marty Barry (banjo, bouzouki and guitar). Alan Doherty played the whistle and Sean McKeon the pipes. The result is a record that is just a pleasure to listen to.
His choice of songs, both modern and much older, is excellent. The album is bookended by two from many years ago, sung in Gaelic. He says that he has been “inspired by the likes of Kneecap and the late Manchán Magan to embrace his native tongue” and is trying to learn at least some of it. The Coolin, from the 16th century, “overheard late at night in a Leitrim pub” and Seoithín Seo-hó are both slow, haunting laments sung beautifully by him.
But at the other end of the scale there are some rollicking tracks with rousing choruses, which you can imagine going down a storm at a local shindig. The Mickey Dam is a light-hearted take on the harsh life of a worker who has to leave home to provide for his family: “For I’m as strong as any lion!/ I was reared on eggs and ham!”. Another is The Rising Of The Moon about the 1798 rebellion. His grandmother, whose family was involved in the 1916 Rising, used to sing it, and he sang it to his father on his deathbed. Dempsey’s brother Gary sang the lively Michael Dwyer, an Andy Irvine song about a Wicklow rebel, at a house party, and Dempsey loved it.
Dempsey had a working-class upbringing on the Holywell housing estate in Dublin, which the album is named after. His staunch and passionate left-wing politics come through time and time again here. Ireland’s Hour of Need and James Connolly are both rebel songs. Smile In Your Sleep is a lullaby but linked to the Highland Clearances, which Dempsey says “were a great crime against humanity, and I feel the pain of them, as the Dempsey’s tribal lands in the centre of Ireland were stolen by Cromwell…. So I feel this song deep inside me as I feel for the people of Gaza right now”.
He heard Luke’s Song, a tale of Dublin, outside in Camden Town, sung in the early hours, with the whole street stopping to listen. The biblical tale, The Pharaoh’s Daughter, was sung by his Uncle Fran one Christmas Day. And there is a different take on The Pogues’ brilliant Pair of Brown Eyes. It is calmer and less raw than the original, so doesn’t convey the horror of war quite as well, but, on the other hand, the sadness and poignancy in the words is conveyed by its beauty, particularly in Dempsey’s vocals.
Throughout the album, there is such a strong feeling of Dempsey handing on songs to future generations which tell stories of the history of Ireland and so keep that history and pride in Irish culture alive. As he says: “I was thinking about some of the younger fans singing all these songs, and how maybe their grandkids will hear them singing them someday.” He adds, “I think it was Brendan Kennelly who said that a song is just a ghost looking for a home – so hopefully these ghosts will be finding lots of new homes after this album is released.”
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