Mother’s influence and a fun Sister’s act of kindness
With her new album celebrating the role of women in Irish society, Pauline Scanlon tells Danny McElhinney how two strong females helped to shape her career
PSHE’S FIVE SO IT’S A BIT EARLY TO SAY SHE IS GOING TO FOLLOW IN MY FOOTSTEPS
auline Scanlon has just released The Unquiet, a delightful album on which she has been working for four years. But one, it might be said, that she has been planning for much of her 20-year career. The Dingle native says The Unquiet is inspired by her late mother Eileen and links its 10 traditional Irish songs to Eileen’s experiences and those of modern Irish women. If Pauline’s interpretations of standards such as The Well Below Valley-O and a rocking take on Oró, Sé Do Bheatha Bhaile don’t immediately seem relatable to the lives of women in 2022 then she points to the dearth of songs in the folk tradition that cast women as anything other than chattels, duplicitous, wronged or merely incidental characters.
‘I feel that the agency of women in traditional Irish song isn’t great and it is a reflection on that and an homage to my mother and her feminist ideals,’ she says.
‘Mum was a hostess [as a proprietor of a B&B]. We always had a very open house growing up. I remember my parents having a lot of parties. I’ve taken that love of company and enjoyment of friends and family with me. She was 57 when she died in 2012 or ’13. Since Covid happened I’m terrible with all the dates. It’s a total time warp; it’s coming on 10 years actually, yeah.’
Her mother took the young Pauline to the bunscoil in Dingle before she celebrated her fifth birthday. There she met another female role model that had a formative influence on Pauline and ultimately her career as a singer.
‘I had a nun there when I started in baby infants called Sister DeSales and she would bring me round to the bigger [older] classes and I would sing for them,’ Pauline says.
‘She was the first one who got me to perform when I was four. She passed away during the pandemic; she was an incredible woman. I was very fond of her. She was a very encouraging and fun person from north Kerry.’
Pauline’s own daughter
Kitty appears briefly on the album singing at the beginning of the song Ce A Chuirfidh Tu Liom. ‘Yes, that’s Kitty, my five and a half year old,’ she sighs. ‘It’s a bit early to say she is going to follow in my footsteps but she never stops singing. She has started piano lessons now as well.
She likes it but I would love that for her to be an organic thing rather than me pushing it on her.’
Pauline first came to prominence as a member of duo Lumiere with fellow Kerry woman Eilis Kennedy and sang in the Sharon Shannon Band. She married musician Eamon
Murray in 2015 so their daughter Kitty – if she pursues a musical career – would be going into the family business.
The Belfastman is a member of Ed Sheeran-vouched band Beoga and often plays live with Pauline.
After a tour to promote The Unquiet, they will be renewing acquaintance with the songbook of Leonard Cohen. They and Galway band the Whileaways will team up for the series of shows entitled Bird On The Wire: The Songs Of Leonard Cohen which have proven very popular.
‘We are doing a few festivals over the summer and we have an Irish and European tour starting in September,’ she says.
‘It’s kind like a capsule, a side project. We absolutely love doing those shows, it’s so brilliant.’
She laughs that as the frontwoman at her solo concerts and the ‘Cohen shows’ there isn’t a problem when she has to tell Eamon what to do.
‘He doesn’t mind that at all, I can tell you,’ she says.
‘We’ve been doing much more of it since the Leonard Cohen thing, actually. He’ll be playing with me on all my solo dates.
‘I love playing and touring with Eamon. We do it all together really. We’re self-managed and he helps me with all that. He’s my wingman.’
I LOVE BEING ON TOUR WITH MY HUSBAND, EAMON. HE’S MY WINGMAN
■ The Unquiet is out now. See paulinescanlon.net for live dates.