At home with Eleanor McEvoy

For many artists, their home can be a haven from the hurly-burly of work, or it can be their office. But for Eleanor McEvoy, her home near Rosslare in Co Wexford is all that and more. McEvoy readily admits that the house is actually a key part of her creative process, where she writes and arranges most of her material, including her new album Out There.
“The house used to be a farm barn, about 150 to 200 years old," she says. "It has sturdy, two-foot thick walls, and while it has a busy road on one side, it’s surrounded by fields on the other three, so in a way I’m between the busy world and this idyllic landscape. Wexford town is not too far away and it has great bookshops, record shops, cafes, restaurants, the Arts Centre and so on, and yet I’m really living in fairly isolated but inspirational countryside. My postman Brendan plays the uilleann pipes, so there’s music about too. In fact he revived my trad playing by inviting me to play in local sessions like Butlers pub and so on,” she says.
McEvoy has been living here for about four years, and she worked on the songs and arrangements for Out There in her home-studio in the house. It’s choc-a-bloc with a host of musical instruments, including several guitars, violin, mandolin, several keyboards, various bits of percussion, a balalaika, manuscript paper, amps, strings and other stuff. “With no disrespect to any of my previous musical colleagues, I was determined to not only write the songs but also arrange everything myself," she says. "So I played everything when I was demoing and that’s what I did on the album. It was just myself in a similar old house in Norfolk (with the producer and the engineer) for two weeks. Liam Bradley came in for a couple of days to play on a few of the tracks and Dave Rotheray from the Beautiful South played on a track I had written with him. I really love old houses, so there was a continuity of environment throughout the entire process that I think gives the album a character and a sense of cohesion."
In that sense, her home is effectively one of the tools in McEvoy’s work. Not surprisingly then, it’s a musical house, with music playing somewhere in it at virtually any time of day. But given that she is on an indie label, it’s also the office and work-base:
“Yes, this is where we plan all the gigs, deal with the whole paraphernalia of designing the cover, planning the publicity, talking to promoters, keeping in contact with other people in the industry, and whatever needs to be done to run what is really an industry in a little cottage."
Apart from the chaos of her music room, the house is generally tidy, although not fastidiously so, possibly reflecting the easy order she brings to her musical adventures. There are records and books everywhere.
“I have a large collection of vinyl," she says, "music from every genre: blues, classical, Motown, folk, just not much jazz. Just now I’m into Aberfeldy, Bright Eyes, The Raconteurs, the new Paul Simon album, which is brilliant, and the new Shaz Oye album. There are a few cringe-making records in there, but I embrace that too, like maybe music-hall records, or an old Delia Murphy record.”
You’ll also spot a spread of newspapers and magazines around the house, some of which actually inspired her new single ‘Non-Smoking Single Female’. As she told me: “I wrote the song after a friend of mine joined an internet dating service. It’s really interesting how people describe themselves, and also the qualities they look for in a partner. I found myself reading personal ads in everything from Private Eye to The Farmers Journal. The language in the ads varied depending on the publication, totally fascinating, hence the song.”
On the literary front, she’s a persistent reader who’s just come through a Gabriel Garcia Marquez phase. “I’m a huge fan of Marquez to the extent that I want to go to Colombia. I loved his One Hundred Years Of Solitude. Catcher In The Rye by JD Salinger is another favourite. I think I read and re-read it for about 10 years. I want to go back and re-read the books I read years ago but have since forgotten.”
But does she ever forget songs? “Strangely enough, I’d never forget a good song. I was recently doing an arrangement for Brian Willoughby who played with The Strawbs, and my brother Kieran mentioned the Strawbs’ hit ‘Part Of The Union’. It goes back to the early 70s and I probably hadn’t heard it since I was about nine, but I could still quote him all the lyrics straight off, although I forget my own phone number on a regular basis! I generally finish books once I start them, although I’m now beginning to think that I shouldn’t really make myself read on if the book doesn’t justify the time and energy you put into reading it. Life’s too short."
Eleanor doesn’t watch television at all, “but I love radio. Apart from my local station South East Radio and the national stations, I also pick up the BBC stations. BBC Radio 4 is my favourite, perhaps because they make actual programmes, rather than just giving somebody a microphone and a telephone."
The house is also dotted with pieces of art.
“I have this beautiful little flathead which my partner bought for me and which I used as part of the cover art for my Yola album. It’s two matching sculptures by Christy Keeney. I also have a Bobby Ballagh painting of the Saltee Islands which has an inscription in a Yola dialect. I have these because I like them and want them in the house, rather than anything to do with investments.”
But of all the items in the house, McEvoy’s pride and joy is her violin.
“I’ve had it since I was a child," she says. "It’s important as one of the key tools of my trade, and it’s not particularly valuable, but it’s been a part of everything I’ve done in my life. When I wanted to be a singer-songwriter or travel around the world or teach, when I wanted to get a flat it generated enough money to enable me to do so. If it all goes horribly wrong tomorrow, it’s my survival tool.”
Photos: Mick O’Gorman