Hi, I'm Rhiannon Giddens.
Welcome to Ireland, my second home.
We're here in Dublin at Whelan's, a legendary music venue that was one of the first places I ever played in this country.
In this season of My Music, we'll be visiting with some of the wonderful artists who call Ireland home.
Karen Casey rode the rocket ship of trad music stardom with the hugely popular band Solas early in her performing life, but soon found a different path in musical activism.
She has since harnessed her sweet soprano for stories that are often overlooked.
Her husband, well known concertina player Niall Vallely, joined her for an afternoon in Cork City.
There's a woman who sobs her heart out with her head against the door for the man that's goin' to leave her God have pity on the poor And it's beat drums beat beat drums beat to the fall of many feet and it's blow trumpets blow God go with you when you go.
And there's a crowd of little children who march along and shout for it's fine to play at soldiers now the fathers are called out and it's beat drums beat beat drums beat to the fall of many feet and it's blow trumpets blow keep your tears til they go.
To the war we go but from there we never return To the war we go and for centuries we burn.
Blow trumpets blow.
Blow trumpets blow.
Ah.... ba di ya da da Ba... ba di la da da There's a woman who stands watching for the last look of her son a poor widow woman and yes, she has only one and another who stands laughing for she thinks that the war is grand and it's fine to play at soldiers and it's fine to hear the band And it's beat drums beat beat drums beat to the fall of many feet and it's blow trumpets blow God go with you when you go.
To the war we go but from there we never return To the war we go and for centuries we burn Blow trumpets blow Blow trumpets blow.
Ba...ba di da da da Ba...ba di da da da Ba...ba di da da di So happy to be here with you at Triskel Arts Centre in Cork, which I understand is your adopted home.
You're not originally from Cork.
Where are you originally from?
That's true.
I'm still a blow-in, actually, according to many Cork people.
I'm from Waterford.
- Okay - But I've lived in Cork for 25 years.
Right.
But of course, in Cork you could be here for 60 years and still be a blow-in, right?
Exactly.
Yes.
So how....what brought you what brought you to Cork?
How did you end up here?
My husband, Niall Vallely, who I actually met in the States at a festival, and he was living here, and I had been living in America for 8 or 9 years in New York City.
And then I decided to, to move home.
So have you always, you know, had that idea that you were going to be a professional musician from when you were a smallie or is that kind of something that you sort of crept into?
Like, how did that happen for you?
Well, I was blessed in that both of my grannies were great singers.
And my dad is a really beautiful singer.
- Oh, amazing.
- Love songs.
His main thing that he wants are, at the end of the night, are people to have a sing song.
And he organizes.
And my grannies used to put me up on a table from when I was very small, probably 2 or 3, and I got the curtain... you know, the thing ... -The pull.
- Yeah, yeah.
- We'll say it's a pull and hold that as a mic - Oh my god, that's hilarious.
And they would applaud.
A lot.
- Aw, that's beautiful.
When did you start feeling like, okay, these are great, but I kind of...
I have some other things that I would like to say about you know, when... when did that start to happen for you?
Um... Well, I've always been quite a political, you know, animal, and I... very much interested in how a song challenges and promotes social justice and also really allows us, if we can come together in a room and build trust and love, then we can build community.
And we really...
I mean, Jesus, the world needs all of those things so much now, you know?
And so I suppose I've always had a notion of that.
My heroes would have been... Nina Simone in particular.
and Christy Moore here in Ireland, you know, who really devoted a lot of their work to making a change and a difference in the world.
So I suppose I was always at that in fairness, at the very... when I was in New York, I was, you know, doing campaigning on a variety of issues.
A lot about Ireland at the time.
And I was actually doing benefits and singing as a side, you know, they were sort of helping the political work.
- Wow.
- One of the songs I love singing is Siil a Rin, which is about this it's from the position of the woman and her husband goes to fight in a mercenary war and it just talks about the futility of war.
But I feel like I never get to the end of that song.
It's probably about 150 years old, and I've really tried to create, you know...I like different musics.
And I spent nearly eight years trying to be a jazz singer.
And so I suppose I lean into that in the second half of the song.
I was just very lucky to fall into the lap of the gods.
And the singing really did take off.
I was waitressing, babysitting, and I was actually assistant editor of children's science books, (which I should not have been) in New York - I love it, though.
Have you written any science-based songs?
I just have to know.
Is this in your future?
I just, you know... - I'm so bad at science.
- Oh that's hilarious.
I know you've been an activist and you've been thinking about these things your whole life, but have you been a songwriter your whole life, or did that start later?
I used to kind of...
I've always written poetry, and I used to write some songs, um But I, you know, I suppose I became an interpretive singer.
I studied jazz for a long time, and then I studied a lot of traditional song and folk.
So the songwriting is much, much more challenging.
It's taken me a long time to say, even in my blurbs, that I'm a songwriter.
I know the feeling.
Yeah.
It's a completely different skill.
I like being challenged, and I like pushing myself.
So, um, and songwriting gives me all of that, and it's just a joy, really.
I think a gift to myself for a day is a day of songwriting.
-Wow.
That's amazing.
I wish I...
I'm going to get into that mindset one day.
It's just, like, I find it... it's very kind of like off and on, you know?
It's why I admire folks who kind of have a discipline about it, you know, because it is it's a discipline.
It's a totally different thing.
- Yeah.
Like you have to be at work every morning.
I'm not saying it's a good day, every day, or not that it's... the process is good.
It mightn't be a good result, but the actual having the day to write is nice.
I think, actually, the menopause is a great thing.
It really allows you to do what you want and be yourself.
Be cross, be angry, and then... and then okay, this is how I am.
And so that has kind of opened up a whole new portal in my imagination for me.
- Oh, brilliant.
That's around the corner for me, so...
I'm excited to hear that.
- Because it's always presented as being so bad.
- This is it.
- Yeah.
And I mean, there are things about it that aren't good.
Don't get me wrong.
- Fair enough.
How did I get onto the menopause?
But anyway... - We don't talk enough about menopause.
I'm just going to say that, you know, like, Lord knows we've talked about men's issues for donkeys, but, like, you know, we say the word menopause and people freak.
- Yeah.
And so it is it does allow you to go, well, what way do I want my life now?
And so I went... like I'm back playing the piano more.
It doesn't...
I'm not a brilliant piano player, but it doesn't have to be perfect.
And I can really indulge my imagination with all those, you know, different harmonies that I learned 25 years ago, right?
- Right.
-Yeah.
Another thing that I find really helps in terms of creativity is reading poetry.
So I discovered this amazing woman called Winifred Mabel Letts, who was English, and she came to Ireland before the First World War, and she was a nurse.
She nursed a lot of the soldiers, and she wrote the most beautiful, incredible poems.
And so the song Beat Drums Beat is taken from from one of her poems.
I added the chorus and that.
But I find that really kind of satisfying.
You know, you've got these amazing lyrics.
- It's like you co-write.
The speaker's not around, but, like, you know It brings them into the... into the space.
- Yeah.
The song My name It Is Kathleen Clarke was about this amazing woman that I found out about in Limerick.
My great-grandparents are from Doon in County Limerick.
- Cool.
And I was researching them during Covid as everybody was reading things they had never read before.
And, um, I discovered that my great-grandfather, Packy Ryan, had been in jail in England.
He was on hunger strike, and he was heavily involved in the rebellion, which I kind of knew, but I didn't know anything about Agnes.
And so every time I asked what, you know, what was Agnes Ryan like?
all these stories from my aunts and my cousins started to appear.
And I was kind of, you know, trying to find an image or a picture of her life.
And I came across Kathleen Clarke, who was an extraordinary woman that I had learned nothing about in school.
And everybody actually in the Irish education system we should put in her memoir because it's really an amazing memoir of the rebellion and life after the rebellion.
- Wow.
I want to get that for my daughter!
- It's brilliant.
- Yeah.
And she...so she was married to Tom Clarke, who was the first president of the Irish Republic.
She was the one of the only women who knew all the details of the rising.
And she was also put in charge of the National Dependants Fund after the rising.
And so she was in charge of the whole country, the monies that were being spent to help people who had lost someone or who was in jail.
She was heavily motivated by women's rights, children, orphanages.
And she continued, you know, the struggle for Irish freedom and equality.
She ended up being the first female mayor of Dublin, and she's just -Wow!
I know, well I'm trying to write, you know, write women, amazing women back into that narrative.
Frank Harte actually used to say the winners write the history but those who suffer write the songs.
- Ooh!
- Yeah.
- Who said that?
- This is Frank Harte, who's a great singer.
- That's brilliant.
- Yeah, he's an amazing man.
- It's very true, isn't it?
- Yeah it is.
Yeah, it's really brilliant.
- That's why the because that's why traditional songs are so important.
Because they tell the story of the people who aren't in the history books.
- Yes.
- That is, it's like a parallel history.
- Yeah.
- Right.
My name it is Kathleen Clarke tonight I have come up from the dark with the earth in my hair feel freedom, not despair I've come up from my grave to speak of the brave come up from my grave to speak of the brave.
From the town of Limerick I do hail, against the Crown I did rail.
My family I did fight, to sail that ocean wide to wed my one true love, Tom Clarke, to wed my one true love.
But the Crown shot my husband Tom Clarke dead and the very next day they killed my brother Ned My curse attend the men who have turned their backs on me Those who preach and do speak for liberty We will rise, we will rise, we will rise, Ah, the women, we will rise.
The devil de Valera sold the keys of the kingdom of Ireland to the bishops and the Crown.
Kevin O'Higgins says that women's heels are drumming too loud There are those who dismiss womankind, say that we are forever losing our minds that we are limited and small But beware we're the bravest of them all We will rise, we will rise, we will rise, The women, we will rise.
We will rise, we will rise, we will rise, The women, we will rise.
My name it is Kathleen Clarke.
Tonight I have come up from the dark.
Passport
Follow Us