Bodhran To Be Wild

An all female trad supergroup anyone? That’s exactly what is sitting before us today. T With The Maggies is a glittering, ‘you asked for it, so you got it’ coalition between Triona NiDhomhnaill, her sister Maighread, Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh and Moya Brennan. We’re so excited we can hardly sit still! Let the grilling commence...

Greg McAteer: How did you make the decision to get together?
Moya Brennan: Well, we didn’t. It’s like the path has been carved for us. We were asked to do a concert about two years ago in Dublin. We started to rehearse and even in the first rehearsal, the vibe, the laughter, the joy, everything between us was easy. There was something going on and when we finished that gig we looked at each other and said, ‘we have to do something else’.
Maighread NiDhomnaill: I thought, because of the busy schedules, that unless we got together somewhere with no distractions we’d never get anywhere. And I knew about Annaghmakerrig. So I booked it. Then there was another incident that got us into the studio. Sam Shephard heard us at the gig at the Button Factory and he asked us – because there was a Stephen Rea and Sean McGinley play in the Peacock – would we put down ‘Two Sisters’.
MB: When he heard us singing it he said ‘I’d love people to be listening to that when they’re walking out’ and we said ...‘Nice!’
MniD: ...So we had to record that, the project moved on, we had these days in Annaghmakerrig.
MB: It flew. When we came out of Annamakerrig we had the album. We knew what was going on it but the most incredible thing happened as well. We’d get up and we’d be sitting having our breakfast, and one morning we were reading the paper and it was during the time of the apology for Bloody Sunday and your woman here (MniM) comes down and she’d written these words in Irish...
Mairead NiMhaonaigh:... thinking we’d all collaborate but they said no, the words are there...
MB:... and herself and Triona got to the piano and all of a sudden it was a song. Then another morning we were reading – it was all about emigration, all the kids leaving this country – and we all collaborated on this piece called ‘Mother’s Song’. We didn’t go down there to write songs. And yet, we were going down there with hundreds of songs between us!
MniM: Our people before us sang, Maighread and Triona’s father and mother and Moya’s people are well known for singing...
MB: Well, my grandparents had the songs. So it was in the families and we grew up with them.
MB: And then your dad (T & MniD) would make sure that you knew all the local songs...
MniD: He was a collector for the Folklore Commission in the ‘20s and ‘30s. He was the first person that ever took songs out of Tory Island. Then, as kids, we were brought when he used to record. So we were dragged around Rannafast where he’d be recording, you know, sitting on doorsteps listening to stuff.
GMcA: Did that fire you to be singers?
Triona NiDhomhnaill: We took it as natural... it was part of our lives.
MB: It was natural. You never looked at it as if to say I don’t want that. Whatever else you were listening to – on the radio – it was still part of the same thing. If it was good music it was good music and all of these songs were very much part of the good music...
MniM: ...it sits hand-in-and with our favourite pop singers or rock singers. To me it was the same thing: good music. That’s what our people showed us... that you embrace music.
MB: One minute we’d be singing the songs from ‘round the area, then we’d be harmonising Beatles or Joni Mitchell songs.
MniD: The thing that we did though, we (Skara Brae) were the first to experiment with instruments and accompaniment and harmonies and things like that... things that hadn’t been done...
MB: ...the songs were unaccompanied really before that...
MniD ...and that brought its own criticisms, the purists thought we were destroying the songs, ruining them...
MB: The two bands would have been told, ‘Great sound but you better sing in English because nobody’s going to listen to you’.
TniD: We took into our psyches the beauty of the songs themselves, the language, the poetry, the worth of it... we felt like people were losing out that they didn’t realise what beauty was there in the songs.
MniD: When you talk about the four of us in a radius of five, maybe eight, miles... Rannafast had versions of songs, Dothair had versions of songs, all the areas. You could have one song and slightly different changes in the words and melodies. That proved the richness of it all. That’s what this collaboration is coming about from. We are still finding versions of songs.
TniD: ...and also the coming and going over the centuries from Donegal to the islands, to Scotland and the emigration and people coming home – that’s how songs travel.
MniD: Our granny always reminded us that, when all the young men around Rannafast were going off to the tatty-hoking, they would ask what to bring back and she told them, ‘Bring me back a song’. Our Aunt Nelly who was blind would hear a song. If she liked it she’d ask them to sing it again and she’d have it...it could be 20, 30 verses...
MB It was a talent – Sile Mhici, down in Dothair – she’d tell you the story of the song, then she would give you the words. The melody was last and then she’d say, ‘Now go and sing it your own way’.
MniM: That’s one of the things that’s so good about traditional Irish music, that you’re allowed to breathe it. If you’re too precious you’re afraid of it. But if you let it come into yourself and you express it the way you want to, it’s going to live for the next generation.

The album T With With The Maggies is out now