Michelle Mulcahy’s new album, Suaimhneas (Clór Iar-Chonnact), is her début solo recording, and though she is known as a player of many instruments this album is dedicated solely to her harp playing.

Unlike so many other Irish harp albums, this one features mostly dance tunes: four sets each of reels and jigs, and two sets of hornpipes; with only two airs (‘Amhrán Mhaínse’ and ‘An Bhuatais’), one O’Carolan piece (not composed by O’Carolan himself) and one piece, a march, composed by Mulcahy herself.

Her extensive sleeve notes detail the recording history of many of the tunes she has chosen for the album and where she herself has encountered the tunes. There are tunes by Seán Ryan, Larry Redican, Junior Crehan, Paddy Fahy, Mick O’Connor and Mulcahy herself.

Iarla Ó Lionáird writes in the liner-note: ‘Something magical happens when an artist is born into a musical world and grows on a coeval path within that culture, walking hand in hand, step by step from childhood with the rhythm, pulse and drone of a place, a people and a complex of ideas made of sound and feeling… To know where one is from is of undoubted value to those who are bearers of the culture … But as custodians of the imagination, more potent still, perhaps, is the instinctual knowledge of where to go next as artists, what to make from the silence we are confronted with as composers. Here Michelle Mulcahy does not disappoint, her embellishments within and around each jig, reel and air on this recording show consummate judgement and authorship of the highest order.’

The track listing is as follows:

1. Martin Wynne’s No 2/Humours of Lissadell/The Duke of Leinster
2. The Battering Ram/Winnie Haye’s/The Cordal Jig
3. Galway Bay/The Peacock’s Feather No 2
4. Amrhan Mhainse
5. Castletown Connors/Father Quinn’s/Tell Her I Am
6. Micho’s Mason’s Apron/Jackson’s/Cathair Rua
7. O’Carolan’s Cup
8. Mary Shore/Brid Harper’s/The Luachrachan
9. The Morning Star/Paddy Fahy’s/The Shallow.
10. An Bhuatais
11. Miss Galvin’s/May Ban
12. The Karen March
13. Mick O’Connor’s/Lad O’Beirne’s/Matt Peoples
14. O’Sullivan’s March/Celia’s Jig/Whelan’s Old Sow

cic.ie.