Music
18 Mar 09

Crossing the threshold

To coincide with her first solo album, Imeall, Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh talks to Jackie Hayden about the pleasures and pressures of inter-band relationships, motherhood, the Irish language and her solo adventure.

If Irish traditional music ever needs an ambassador, Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh would surely be first in line. Not only is she a talented fiddle player, singer and tunesmith – she also talks about music with an enthusiasm that is unfailingly infectious. With her feisty spirit and indomitable good humour, she has done more than most to kill off the old image of the Irish female trad singer as the demure cailín permanently dressed for set-dancing at the crossroads.

She has lived much of her life in the public glare, yet does not complain about the way in which performers’ private lives can become the subject of gossip and idle speculation. As she explained to Hot Press: “Being in the public domain is part and parcel of being a performer. It really only bothers me when people make up stories or get it wrong. But I tend to switch off from it anyway.”
Ní Mhaonaigh, of course, was married to Altan fiddle player Frankie Kennedy, who passed away in 1994. She later married and separated from the band’s accordionist, Dermot Byrne. When there are life partners in the same band, does that not cause pressures? “It can be quite the opposite,” she says. “I was so used to being with Frankie in Altan, and then poor Frankie passed away. Within about a year, I started going out with Dermot who was also in the band, and it was a real comfort to have him with me all the time, especially on faraway trips to America or Japan. In fact, my heart often goes out to the lads in the band who have to be away from their partners so much. It’s not a good lifestyle for musicians who have people back home. It was good to have somebody there.”
Motherhood and life as a jobbing musician are not comfortable bedfellows, though, are they? “Becoming a mother was bit of a shock to the system initially. But now I’ve balanced it out. My daughter, Nia, who is now five will always be part of my life and much of what I do has to revolve around her. I can’t always bring her with me on tour, and she finds that hard, although she’s adapted. My family and friends and Dermot’s family have been really supportive. I think she’s happy that we play music and are different from other parents. She gets to go to places like Hawaii where none of her friends have been (laughs).”
As to why it’s taken so long to make her first solo album, especially since she’s been making records for over 20 years, her answer is simple. “I hadn’t really got the time! With Altan there were always albums to make, tours to do and so on. But since I had Nia, I’ve had a bit more time at home in Donegal and it seemed like the right time.”
Was making the solo album a different experience from working with Altan? “Altan is second nature to me now. Doing a solo album makes you feel very exposed. Within the band you learn to compromise with other people’s tastes, and they with mine. In my solo work, I can do it the way I want it. Manus Lunny helped produce it and he brought some great ideas to the project too.”
But how would a track like ‘Girseachai An Phointe’ from Imeall have sounded on an Altan album? She smiles: “It would probably have had bouzouki, guitar, two fiddles, a bodhran and a box. When I did it, I used a Hardinger fiddle I got in Norway and which I never used on an Altan record. I double-tracked it too, because I like the resonating strings. Manus added bouzouki and guitar, and Donal Lunny, who just happened to be around, joined in as well! So it has a band sound, but it’s not an Altan sound.”
Is there a danger trad diehards might regard double-tracking as an unforgiveable crime? “I don’t care about the purists. They can frown as much as they like! I believe in using the studio I’m in to help me express what I want to express. The female vocals on ‘Mo Nion O’, for example, are all mine. I use double-tracking which I’ve done lots of with Altan. Most of the male vocals on the album are Manus.”
“Imeall” signifies an edge or a border but for Mairéad it has a special meaning. “To me the world imeall means a threshold, and I suppose I was crossing a threshold of sorts by making a solo album.”
She sings equally mellifluously in Irish and English. Is there any technical difference between performing in the two languages? “To me all singing is to do with the sounds of the words. In that sense it’s a bit like the Cocteau Twins, where the sound of the words and the notes combine together to make the song. Singing in Irish comes more naturally to me. I love singing in English too. That’s why I have a song like ‘Dobbin’s Flowery Vale’ on Imeall.”
Her love of the Irish language makes Mairéad a sharp observer of its waxing and waning in various parts of the country. “I always felt the reason country and western music became so prominent in Donegal was that it was a way of leaving the language behind and turning towards America. But I couldn’t understand why people wanted to sing songs about faraway Kentucky and not sing their own music. There can be a lot of snobbery about Irish, both for and against. Living in Donegal now I hear a lot of English being spoken by children. I speak to Nia all the time in Irish and she answers me in English! When I was growing up, everybody spoke Irish. I also find that at the outer edges of the Gaeltacht areas there’s a huge anti-Irish language view, and that’s to do with poverty and emigration. In Dublin now there seem to be more people than ever learning it and loving it like a real privilege, whereas here maybe people just take it for granted. It’s such a beautiful language I can’t understand why people would be willing to let it die.”
She acknowledges that the trad music scene is as badly affected by illegal downloading as other genres. “It’s definitely harder now to make a living from playing Irish traditional music. There’s also so much competition from so many bands. But I think it’ll be good for the music, because it’ll make musicians take a look at what they do and maybe out of that will come some new and exciting music.”
What with looking after her daughter, her split from Dermot and her solo venture, some people have speculated that maybe the end is nigh for Altan. But she quickly dispels that notion. “Actually, Altan are currently committed to recording two albums this year. We’re doing an orchestral album with Fiachra Trench and we have a new Altan to work on. So Altan will be continuing well into the foreseeable future!”