I have many affectionate memories of people who immersed me in sean-nós, who introduced me to certain songs and inspired me to sing in certain styles. But although most of the songs on this album came to me through my parents I think my biggest incitement comes from past generations, the echoes of whom I often hear in the music of the songs and the imagery of their stories.

I have often fallen for the music of a song and the sound of its phrases before I understood anything else about it. The imagery in the words and music draws you in laying bare the humanity of the stories and lives expressed in their words.

The song has personality -a realisation that can be quite startling. Some songs have very specific tales to tell. Johnny Seoighe, for instance, speaks in the voice of its author. Its words forceful and bitter, and its air strong with conviction, seem to seize not only the listener but also the singer. It is the most strident testimony to that ephemeral but often observed occurrence when a song, assuming a life of its own, sings the singer.

To give a picture of sean-nós in its pure form (partly so the listener can appreciate the fundamental source of this CD and partly because I particularly like these two songs) I have included two songs undressed with accompaniment. The thrilling and powerful Buachailín Bán (the fair haired boy) and Tuireamh Mhic Finín Duibh. Tuireamh Mhic Finín Duibh isn’t quite undressed admittedly but I hope you’ll find this presentation doesn’t detract from the stark and eerie mood it set for me when I first heard it.

When we hear a song we hear the narrative of society separated from us by generations in time. In one way the song entices us to imagine how the people that produced it lived, dreamed and struggled, but more importantly it inspires us to conceive a meaning for it from our own experiences and from our one undeniable common link of human hopes and suffering. Listening to a eighteenth century song we don’t connect to themes of sailboats or carriages or swords and pistols, we relate to themes of pride, hate, greed, passion, love, betrayal and we sometimes let our imagination draw the images of the song in our mind. Sometime; like someone tracing back over a path from the point of its conclusion, we can unwind a different narrative path than expected and perhaps see a different relevance than was conceived in its original expression, but a huge aspect of a living tradition is the way it has renewed relevance to each generation that partakes in it; the way it becomes a part of every exponents experience and their experience become part of its expression.

Enjoy this with my best wishes.

:Lorcán Mac Mathúna