Music is the best Medicine

Loah decided to ditch her career as a chemist and pursue her dream of acting and singing, thanks to co-writing a very famous song...

it is important to live there when you are younger, I think, to develop that sense of connection. Ireland feels most like home because I spent the most time here but I do have enough of a connection to Sierra Leone that when I do go there I have my friends and family and it’s not totally alien to me.’

Growing up in Maynooth she had a relatively sheltered upbrining in a ‘lovely place to live’. But it is as she has grown older that Sallay has seen more racism and is thankful it was something she wasn’t exposed to at a younger age. Sallay insists it is important for her to embrace both sides of her background. ‘I feel you have to keep the culture alive by being a part of it, otherwise it dies out within you. I think it is important but that’s me,’ she says.

‘I don’t think it is as important to everyone. Some people are okay with that but I feel when you grow up black in Ireland it’s interesting because people aren’t used to it. The number of people who ask you where you are really from... I don’t care too much about that because I know who I am but I did feel like it was important to know where the other part of me was from.

‘To be mixed race it is important to feel ownership over all the parts of yourself because I don’t know if the world ever fully accepts that you are one thing or another. We get confused when people are in more than one box. How can you have two boxes?’

‘That’s all it is and it used to kind of upset me that I had to explain myself but then I began to understand the context of it and I felt if I couldn’t change it, I had to face it. It is important to feel I understand even if other people don’t. It’s that simple.’ ÷OTHER Voices Dingle takes place at St James’ Church on November 30 and December 1. Music Trail West returns as part of Other Voices Dingle 2018 on December 1. Visitors will be treated to a day of musical discovery with some of the best Irish acts performing in venues around the Dingle Peninsula. Tickets from Kennedy Coaches are priced €25. See othervoices.ie for more.