From his vantage point in Northern Italy, and by applying this outsider’s view of Irish Songwriting and how it is nurtured and perceived in Ireland, Dublin Songwriter, Ray Heffernan has created a podcast to examine the craft. By speaking with 48 other writers from all across the Island and further afield, from the absolute beginner to the internationally acclaimed, this 7-part podcast seeks to understand and reveal the history, motive, approach and inspiration as to why and how one becomes, and lives the life of, an Irish Songwriter.
To do this, Ray compiled a 49 question process that invites the writer to ask him or herself more difficult questions than those often answered in standard, press release based interviews. With the responses to these questions, and a selection of original songs by the particpant writers, he weaves together their different threads of thought to create an aural tapestry of today’s Irish Songwriting in a new and innovative podcast format.
This episode includes the input of such household names as Declan O’Rourke and Mick Flannery, alongside those of relative unknowns such as 21 year old Aoife Carton, cousin of Mic Christopher, who has just released her first e.p., through that of Jess Kav, the vocalist and frontperson of prominent Dublin band, Barq. All of these voices blend into one to narrate the story of songwriting in modern Ireland.
