Ahead of their appearance at Culture Ireland's online SEODA Festival on St. Patrick's Day, Kíla's Rossa Ó Snodaigh writes for Culture about one musician's lockdown life en famille...
Before the first lockdown, we’d just played in a big industry festival in New Orleans, we’d recorded the music to Arracht, Éire’s entry to the Oscars foreign language film and for which we won an IFTA for Best Original Score. We’d also spent a week in the studio with composer Bruno Coulais to record music for Cartoon Saloon’s stunning animated feature Wolfwalkers. It got a Golden Globe & BAFTA nomination and was just nominated for the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. We even managed to score a Martin McGuinness documentary for TG4 and were recording over in Paris with 10 gigs lined up when Whadump! Everything was cancelled, no more gigs, no more nothing. Silence followed the absence and nothing followed that. Stay at home!, Save yourself and your family! Press pause until we get back to you! What to do???
We eventually came up with a plan to film some socially distanced gigs that are to be shown at online festivals worldwide, including for the Culture Ireland’s St Patricks Festival, SEODA, St Patrick’s Festival Kilkenny, St Patrick’s Festival Ireland, and the Department of Foreign Affairs. It was delightful to be playing again and yes it was very different for us without a crowd - kinda like swimming without water.
We need your consent to load this YouTube contentWe use YouTube to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
I decided to look at the lockdown the way I did as a child on the beach. When the sea was in I went swimming and when it was out I built sandcastles. So I’ve been building lots of sandcastles. I recorded music for a children’s book I wrote called Aistir ar an Aibítir which came out for Christmas and I’ve two more kids' books on the way. I’ve been working hard to try to complete my next dictionary; 80,000 words so far, but home-schooling has somewhat stalled the progress of this project.
We need your consent to load this YouTube contentWe use YouTube to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
The Covid payment has been a blessing. Having spent most weekends on the road for the last 20 years, it was has been wonderful to spend all this time le chéile ag an mbaile. We’ve been watching a whole bunch of series: Game of Thrones, Hunger Games, Attack of Titan, Modern Families, Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Who, and I insisted we all watch Groundhog Day. Apart from being hilarious and timely, Bill Murray’s transformation to becoming a truly compassionate soul warms the heart. But I fear this present Groundhog Day is having the opposite effect on a section of the populace who are beginning to believe that we’re all in an episode of Doctor Who where the Daleks are taking over the world.
Yes winter has been long and this stretch of lockdown is beginning to wear us all down but 'Anois teacht an Earraigh, tá'n lá dul chun sineadh’ and living in a town ‘with the country closing in on its streets’ as Louis McNeice wrote has been a blessing for walks, walks, and endless beautiful hikes and walks. How will we ever go back to having none of this time again, I don’t know, but as surely as the tide will return we’ll be in swimming again.
Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh go léir.
Kíla will perform on St. Patrick's Day at SEODA, Culture Ireland's Global Online Arts Festival, which runs from Mar 17-21 - find out more here. All events are available free to audiences around the world through Culture Ireland's YouTube channel.
