RÓIS: "We’ve lost a lot of our culture and our customs, through technology, and this fast-paced, very individualistic culture"

It has been, to use the Fermanagh artist’s own words, a “very sexy year of wakehouse tomfoolery” for RÓIS.

With the release of her brazenly genre-bending MO LÉAN EP in late 2024, the masked vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and composer established herself at the forefront of an ever-expanding movement of Irish acts who are twisting the tradition in their own empowering ways.

Straddling the ancient and the contemporary – as well as the playful and the profound – RÓIS’s exploration of life, death, sex and catharsis has, over the past 12 months, secured her multiple prestigious wins at both the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards and the NI Music Prize; a nomination for Irish Album of the Year at the Choice Music Prize; and serious praise from publications at home and overseas.

“I didn’t really expect anything,” she reflects now. “I definitely didn’t expect all the hype. It’s mad, because it’s only an EP – so for it to have been nominated for album of the year was kind of surprising.

“Two of these keening tracks I’d been working on for a year,” she adds. “It was actually my brother who was that kick-up-the-arse figure for me, to get my music out. I think everybody needs that. He’s in his 40s, and I’m in my early 20s, and it was really good to have him, because I would’ve been – as all my friends are – just tipping away, collaborating, and not really thinking about getting something out. So it’s really nice for it all to go so well, and be really well-received.”

Self-released, written and produced by RÓIS – with additional production from John ‘Spud’ Murphy, known for his work with ØXN and Lankum – MO LÉAN delves into Irish wake traditions that stretch back to pre-Christian times, with a particular focus on the practise of coffin-side keening. It has resonated powerfully with a generation of young Irish people who are increasingly eager to reconnect with their pagan roots.

“We’re finally able to look back on our culture from a fresh perspective,” RÓIS remarks. “30 years after any sort of conflict, when it’s relatively peaceful, we’re able to look back with a fresh, and maybe a bit more healthy, lens.

“We’ve lost a lot of our culture and our customs, through technology, and this fast-paced, very individualistic culture,” she continues. “We’ve lost that sense of ourselves. Like calling in, céilí-ing and rambling into a house. Everybody has to text a week in advance now, ‘When are you free?’ There’s just no real hospitality culture anymore.”

As RÓIS explains, it’s the “anachronism of the sean nós” presented alongside “synths and big, booming soundscapes” that interests her the most – and it’s something she’s brought to life in a brilliantly provocative manner through her live show. Performance art and unbridled on-stage chaos collided on her Irish Wake Tour, which had its dramatic finale at The Button Factory last month – with ‘Did ye ever get The Ride at The Wake House?’ (her feverish take on a Richie Kavanagh classic, which finally got an official release in October) always proving a live favourite.

“I can’t stand gigs where it’s all just moaning,” RÓIS reasons. “It’s very heavy and emotional at the start, and I’d just feel bad, leaving them like that!

“The keening women were probably all really good craic,” she continues. “They were so unbound by societal pressure – they were literally thrown out by priests for being too unladylike. So it’s really important to show that raucous, good-craic side of the Cailleach [the wild woman of Irish folklore] as well.

“And, to be honest, I just really want to make people laugh, and have a good time – because that’s also my personality.”

In addition to her solo work, RÓIS’s name has cropped up across a range of other projects over the past year – from her original score for the immersive Music For Domes documentary, to her appearance on Dublin-based electronic artist Rory Sweeney’s lauded Old Earth album.

She also contributed the song ‘Ear Lobes’ to this year’s A Litany of Failures: Volume V –  a compilation showcasing some of Ireland’s most innovative acts, including the likes of pôt-pot, Landless, Robbie Stickland, Stratford Rise and Elaine Malone.

It’s important, RÓIS agrees, to see the homegrown independent music community celebrated and platformed in such a way.

A Litany of Failures: Volume V

“You go to Féile Na Gréine, or Open Ear, or All Together Now, and it’s all of the Limerick heads, the Belfast heads, the Dublin heads, the Galway heads, the Cork heads – and there’s this experimental link between us all,” she says. “It’s a really nice community. And we’re all having so much silly craic all the time.”

While RÓIS’s approach to her work has been informed in part by her own educational background – having studied composition at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, before completing the final two years of her undergraduate programme in The Hague – there were also plenty of boundary-pushing Irish acts that she looked to for inspiration when she was first starting out.

“I’d be very influenced by Rachael Lavelle,” she reflects. “I just think she’s amazing. Junior Brother, another massive, massive inspiration. Also Elaine Howley, Crying Loser, Henry Earnest... There’s so many more. And they’re my good mates now, just from being at all the festivals and having the craic.

“There are so many cool, inventive artists in Ireland, and there’s a really great ethos,” she continues. “The only thing I wish is for all of us to get outside of Ireland as well. It’s very hard. You have to get a really good manager and a really good label to get you outside of Ireland – and that is actually quite rare. There’s good enough support in the South, but there’s next to none in the North, in terms of funding subsidies, which is a real shame.” 

Still, following the phenomenal response to MO LÉAN, RÓIS remains driven – with her “main focus” right now, she says, being her eagerly awaited new album.

“It’s quite ballad-song-y, very electronic, and very weird…” she reveals. “And that’s all I’ll say!”

‘Did ye ever get The Ride at The Wake House?’ and A Litany Of Failures: Volume V are out now.

RÓÍS plays The Empire, Belfast (April 16) and Beyond The Pale, Co. Wicklow (June 12–14).