Best known for her risque interviews with celebs on Wagon’s Den and portraying characters such as Singing Bernie Walsh, Katherine Lynch recently released her debut music album, Settling Dust, a combination of original compositions and covers of trad classics. Notably, one of the tracks, ‘On Raglan Road’, was written by Katherine’s grand uncle, legendary poet Patrick Kavanagh.

“My grandmother and Patrick Kavanagh were brother and sister,” explains Katherine. “Unfortunately I never met him as he passed away before I was born, but his presence was always there in our house when I was growing up – my dad recited Kavanagh all the time. I think my father married my mother because she was a niece of Kavanagh, he was that big of a fan! I thought for a while growing up that Patrick Kavanagh was actually God. You go into other houses and the Bible might be lying around, but there was always a collection of Kavanagh’s poetry on the table in our house.”
Settling Dust also contains some notable collaborations, with Paul Murphy of the Electric Penguins, trad group Tupelo and Sharon Sharon among those contributing.
“Sharon Shannon plays on a beautiful song called ‘Amsterdam’,” notes Katherine. “That song is about a weekend I spent in Amsterdam with a guy I’m no longer with. It’s all about a weekend where you feel, ‘that’s it’, you’re together forever. Then you come down from everything – and the love! (laughs) I’m talking to Hot Press, it’s okay! So Sharon came onboard for that song ‘cos she really liked it, it’s such a privilege to have her.
“I’d known her to chat to and from meeting her at events, she’s always really nice. I did her on the carpet at the Meteors, as Singing Bernie Walsh, and ask her how did she keep her box clean (laughs). But I think most people who know me for a little while know that I’m acting when I’m doing Sheila Sheikh.”
Katherine has said that the title track of Settling Dust is about the current economic and social difficulties Ireland is facing, and waiting for the situation to mend. Indeed, the album as a whole is a bit of a love letter to Ireland, with Katherine even covering the trad standard ‘Caledonia’, and making Ireland the focus of the song rather than Scotland.
“We do more of a soundscape on it, we change the tempo,” explains Katherine. “It’s not a waltz, it’s more of an eerie ballad, but it’s such a beautiful song. The four covers I picked are pretty nice and we’ve done something different with each of them. The original ‘Caledonia’ is all about Scotland, but in general it’s about the love of one’s country, and the importance of that relationship in all our lives. I think at the moment, our relationship with our country is pretty fraught. We do have another wave of emigration happening. I’m from Leitrim and a lot of people were home for Christmas. I sang ‘Caledonia’ and a few of them were crying. I was like, ‘Wow, I forget that people are still missing home and loving Ireland.’ It’s like a good painting - sometimes you have to walk away from it for a while to appreciate how good it is.”
Does Katherine have any comedy projects in the pipeline?
“Yeah, I’m going back into comedy drama,” she affirms. “I’m leaving the couch for a while. No more than anyone else during the recession, we had to cut our cloth to measure, and the couch was the cloth we cut. We now are in a position to go and do a comedy-drama again. We’re doing this drama called The Centre, and Sheila Sheikh will be opening this centre in Tallaght, where there’s different classes. She’ll be doing all sorts of crazy classes and scamming. I love playing Sheila, she’s funny, and I have a great audience.”
There are shades of Mrs Merton in what Lynch does on Wagon’s Den – is she ever concerned about how people might react to certain questions?
“It’s a bit scary sometimes,” she acknowledges. “Although, I have to point out that when we ring the people – and this why you see loads of English people on my couch – they’re told it’s a comedy roast, not a comedy toast. The lower ranked celebrities, or the higher ranked celebrities, or the people whose careers are a little bit down or up or whatever, the get the whole aspect of laughing at themselves. They’re paid to go on the couch. They go, ‘Oh, is it like Mrs Merton?’ and you go, ‘Yeah’. My researchers tell them that this character could say absolutely anything and they go, ‘Great, absolutely.
“So they come, they get flown in, they get paid and put up in a hotel. They get roasted for half-an-hour, they go to the green room for a few drinks and then they go home. They tweet me and keep in contact. When you have the Irish stars on, they take themselves too seriously.”
Who’s been Katherine’s favourite person to have on the show?
“Well, different people stand out for different reasons,” she muses. “Some people become friends. I had Paul Daniels on the show who was just a proper gent. I also had Mammy Swing from Crystal Swing, who has hilarious and well able for me. She’s quite a funny lady and doesn’t take herself too seriously, obviously.”
 
Settling Dust is out now on Crashed Music.