Behind the music - Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin

Dublin-based singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin has released his new single, The Deepest Breath, the title track from his forthcoming album. We asked him the BIG questions . . .

Eoghan's musical roots are in sean-nós singing - the style of his father - and he grew up listening to the likes of Sorcha Ní Ghuairim, Seán 'ac Dhonncha, Colm Ó Caoidheáin and other greats from the tradition.

He is also influenced by folk singers from the English language tradition such as Liam Weldon, Luke Kelly, Anne Briggs, Margaret Barry and Thomas McCarthy.

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A member of the Dublin-based band Skipper’s Alley, he has also performed with folk/electronica band Jiggy on their albums, Translate (2017) and Hypernova (2020). He also collaborates with Clare fiddle and viola player Ultan O’Brien, their debut album Solas an Lae won best album at the RTÉ Folk Awards in 2021.

His debut solo album is due for release this November 2022. Speaking about The Deepest Breath, Eoghan says, "I was trying to write this song for a while before I got to it. I wanted to write about art and freedom and dreams, the attack on all of these, and the need to fight for them.

"Ultimately what sparked it was reading about a woman called Annie who died in homeless accommodation in Churchtown, half a mile from where I grew up. She left behind her two children.

"It made me think about how growing up you’d hear bulls*** like `you can do anything you set your mind to’, or `follow your dreams’ - hyper individualistic stuff that ignores the system and the social reality so many people are living in.

"Ultimately it promotes a vision of success that sees the individual climb the ladder, and to hell with everyone underneath.

"For me the song is about rejecting that, but reclaiming dreams that are deep, collective, and genuinely meaningful."

Tell us three things about yourself . . .

I grew up in Dublin, but my first language is Irish, and we never spoke any English at home. My father is from the Connemara Gaeltacht so it's his first language. My mother was learning Irish when they first met and was determined to have Irish as the home language - I think when my older sister was born, I think she had her in one arm and the dictionary in the other just to be sure! So, I didn’t really learn English properly until I went to school.

I started teaching myself the concertina when I was about 14. I got one lesson from Larry Kinsella, a lovely player who passed away a few years ago. He showed me the system and then I went off and figured out the rest. I don’t play a proper backing instrument like a guitar or a piano, so that’s the instrument I usually use when I’m writing songs and chordal arrangements.

I am interested in the politics around art and music - who gets to engage in art, who gets to create, etc. I greatly dislike the description of people who make art or music as 'creatives', as if the world were separated into creatives and non-creatives. I think that every human being has the capacity for making art, but that in today's society a lot of people are denied the possibility of doing so. I think that if we lived in a truly liberated society, everyone would be able properly explore their creative potential and make art.

How would you describe your music?

Broadly, it’s a kind of folk music. The foundation for my singing style is in the sean-nós tradition (traditional singing in Irish), and I think that style also shapes how I write new songs, both in English and in Irish. But I build on that foundation and draw on other influences as well.

Who are your musical inspirations?

There are a lot! Colm Ó Caoidheáin, Sorcha Ní Ghuairim, Nioclás Tóibín and Seán 'ac Dhonncha from the sean-nós tradition. From the English language tradition Luke Kelly, Seán Garvey, Anne Briggs and Dolores Keane would be some of my favourites. And Liam Weldon in particular - both an incredible singer and songwriter.

Outside of the Irish folk scene there are lots more: Lisa Hannigan, Adrianne Lenker, Nina Simone, For Those I Love, Pillow Queens, Rhiannon Giddens, Alabaster de Plume, Sylvan Esso, Renaud Garcia-Fons, Rachel Sermanni, This Is The Kit, Tallest Man On Earth. To name a few.

What was the first gig you ever went to?

We would have been around concerts and recitals from a very young age as part of different workshops and festivals. But I think the first standalone gig I went to was a Flook and Lúnasa double bill when I was maybe 14 years old. I went up to Armagh for it with a few school friends. I remember being very excited about it because these were two bands that I listened to obsessively as a teenager. I used to walk around listening to an old discman all the time. You could only have one CD at a time and maybe one or two in your bag, so you just listened to things on repeat. I think it’s interesting how quickly our ways of listening to music have changed so dramatically in such a short period of time. The discman was such a novelty maybe 15 - 20 years ago and now with everyone streaming everything it’s already outdated. I still like to make the space to listen to a full album though, instead of hopping from song to song.

What was the first record you ever bought?

I can't remember the first one I bought, but the first CD I ever called my own was one I got for Christmas from my father - a solo album by the piper Seán Óg Potts. It's a brilliant album - it got a lot of play on the discman!

What’s your favourite song right now?

At the moment it's a track by Sons of Kemet called My Queen Is Ada Eastman.

Favourite lyric of all time?

It's hard to commit to one all-time favourite lyric! But one that I keep coming back to is from a poem by the French surrealist poet Robert Desnos (I hope that's not cheating): "I have dreamed of you so much, have walked so much, talked so much, slept so much with your phantom, that perhaps the only thing left for me is to become a phantom among phantoms, a shadow a hundred times more shadow than the shadow the moves and goes on moving, brightly, over the sundial of your life."

If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?

An impossible question. But I’ll go with Ensemble Ériú’s version of Seachrán Sí this time.

Where can people find your music/more information?

My debut solo album will be out on November 10th. You can buy and stream the new single and title track The Deepest Breath on Bandcamp and Spotify. I am also on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Behind the music - Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin

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