LISA O'NEILL - A LEGEND IN HER TIME

 

Every now and again, an artist comes along who changes the game. Bob Dylan springs immediately to mind. Yet, Dylan without the sense of mystery would have been just another Woody Guthrie imitator.

Dylan, though ahead of his time, seemed rooted in the past. Small wonder, because soon after his arrival in New York he immersed himself in the newspapers and lore of the Civil War period and emerged as a truly original artist.

When I first heard Lisa O’Neill, I felt a shock of recognition. I was once again a young boy, sitting atop my grandfather’s shoulders outside Enniscorthy GAA grounds. We were part of a hushed crowd listening to Margaret Barry as she sang in a nasally voice while strumming her banjo.

To her credit, Lisa had ignored the tidal wave of modern influences, dug deep into Ireland’s past and uncovered the itinerant street singer.

Lisa hadn’t copied Maggie Barry, it’s more that she instinctively inhabited certain aspects of the street singer’s psyche and times.

I immediately began playing O’Neill on Celtic Crush/SiriusXM, but to my surprise there was very little response from the normally curious Crushers. I put it down to the originality of her songs, and to what at first seemed  an awkwardness of delivery.

But make no mistake, Lisa O’Neill is the most original artist to come out of Ireland in a long time.

Born in 1982 in Ballyhaise, County Cavan, nurtured by the quiet beauty of her rural surroundings, she was always aware of music and began writing her own songs at an early age.

Many of the significant new bands and singers emerging from Ireland nowadays are “from the country.” Previously, most tended to be from the greater Dublin sprawl or the bigger towns.

This new rural sensibility tends to draw from the land and long neglected local tradition; yet, their style is spiced with city experience – perhaps, because so many rural teenagers now attend university.

At the age of 18, Lisa left Cavan for Ballyfermot College to study music, and has lived in Dublin for the last 24 years. Because of her grounding in folk music she became a part of the new Trad scene that centers around The Cobblestone and other inner-city pubs.

For a taste of this new Tradition, listen to Lisa’s striking duet on Factory Girl with Radie Peat of the mighty Lankum.

But there’s always an experimental twist to Ms. O’Neill. As rural Irish and traditional as she may be, she was introduced to the banjo (her main performing instrument) by Billy Bragg while at a workshop in Tasmania. These “young Irish” do get around.

One of the things that attracts me is her fearlessness as a songwriter. Is she confessional? Surely, but it’s more like she scans her own heart and boldly follows  its inclinations.

I persevered and played a number of O’Neill’s songs on Celtic Crush, including her amazing cover of Bob Dylan’s All the Tired Horses which had brought her much attention as the finale of the Peaky Blinders series.

But it wasn’t until I played the almost lullaby-like Goodnight World that listeners began writing me about her. One described her as “a voice of the true Ireland that touches you without you knowing why.”

I echo that assessment and have no fear of Lisa getting stuck in any kind of Celtic Twilight, though her 2023 album All of This Is Chance is poetic in the best sense.

She’s already moved on with a 6 song EP, The Wind Doesn’t Blow This Far Right. It has more of a political edge, and features Mother Jones, a song celebrating the life of “the most dangerous woman in America,” labor activist Mary Harris Jones.

Not to mention the searing Homeless in The Thousands (Dublin In The Digital Age); these two tracks become even more vibrant when set against O’Neill’s chilling treatment of the Yuletide classic, The Bleak Midwinter.

There’s an original oddness to her voice that takes a little getting used to, but Bob Dylan sounded equally strange amidst the pop confectionery of the early 1960’s.

Still, I’d bet a pound to a penny that Lisa O’Neill will become one of the most cherished, and challenging, voices of Ireland down many’s the day to come. Up Cavan!

MEN DON'T READ NOVELS

 

Men No Longer Read Novels – the small headline in the bottom right-hand corner of either the Times or the Journal screamed at me.

Yes, I’m one of those luddites who still delights in receiving two newspapers at my door each morning.

Their views are different, but in my jaundiced mind they serve to keep me somewhat balanced.

The headline wasn’t news to me. I had first noticed a gender imbalance years ago while president of Irish American Writers & Artists, and doing a silent head count at one of our early salons.

It was beyond 60% women to 40% men, and I resolved to gradually turn the majority male board into a body that more closely reflected those numbers.

My fear nowadays is that the last word of the headline will become superfluous.

Men, of course, still read novels, but the gender imbalance can become painfully obvious at book readings or signings. Many men prefer biographies, scientific tomes, and histories; but why the scarcity of novel readers?

I’ve been shaped by the novels I’ve read, and for better or worse, I find that novels say something about the times we live in.

My first pre-teen novels were from the Just William series about the hilarious doings of William Brown, an unruly British 11-year old.

I became a County Wexford Library member soon thereafter, and every Wednesday evening I would borrow three books: a history or biography for my grandfather, a detective or romance for Miss Codd, our housekeeper, and something or other in the boy department for myself.

We read like demons. Everyone seemed to, back in Wexford before television ruled the roost. Books were fuel for conversation, and for library members they were free.

I read all of Dickens, was floored by Conan-Doyle, romanced by Jane Austen; then one blessed evening I discovered Graham Greene. The genial librarian, Miss Lucking assumed that Greene’s existential novels were for the grown-ups. I’ve never looked back.

I was living in Dublin when I bought a well-thumbed paperback on Rathmines Road - For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. The hero of this Spanish Civil War story spoke directly to my teenage psyche – his ideals, quiet intensity and longing for justice rang true.

Hemingway’s pared, but luminous, prose swept me away, and the dramatic unspoken ending still haunts me.

Great Gatsby is by far a better known novel, but to me there’s something hollow at its core. Perhaps I’m repelled by Fitzgerald’s Irish Mid-Western snobbishness or his worship of wealth? But there’s no denying it’s a hell of a story and a literary touchstone - every American high-schooler seems to have read it, and good for them!

From the newspaper article I gather that the educational powers-that-be prefer that students read more novel extracts, that nowadays teenagers no longer have the attention-span to devote to a full novel.

What does that say about our society? It roars out that there’s an elephant in the room – Social Media.

The article was able to track the rise of Facebook and Instagram with the decline of high school reading scores.

This is scary stuff, as the writer hadn’t even taken into account the volcano that is Tik Tok, nor the nascent use of AI.

There is no doubting the instant excitement that one can find in social media as compared to the measured elevation of reading a good novel.

Still, despite all the friends and followers one can find on social media, you can almost touch the digital loneliness that’s gathering force. The streets are full of people sporting AirPods as they blankly scroll their phones. Even in bars, where conversation used to reign, people silently stare at banks of flat-screen televisions.

As for the content on social media, much of it is flippant and harmless, but sometimes I’m reminded that “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

People are so convinced they’re right – gone are the days of reasoning or subtle argument. Lies are common, bluster is the currency, everyone’s “truth” is delivered with a sledgehammer; this hardly augurs well for democracy.

Ah, it makes you long for a nice quiet read, where you’ve time to think, come to terms with character and story, while admiring the subtle workings of a thoughtful novel.

 

Should you wish to learn more about Irish American Writers & Artists visit https://iamwa.org    Men are welcome!