A sight to behold

LIVE Ciaran O’Neill & Co play the Townhall this Saturday

it’s almost like anticipating the arrival of a comet. Out of the darkness Ciaran O’Neill is returning to light up the musical horizon with this week’s concert, a new single, and the promise of an album in the coming months. It’d be well worth the trip to the Townhall this Saturday to catch the spectacle.

With his debut album, matter of factly titled ‘Introducing Ciaran O’Neill & Co’, the Redhills native announced his arrival as one of Cavan’s finest singer-songwriters. Tunes like ‘Half Man Half Tractor’, and the glorious epic ‘Look Da, No Hands’ still percolate in the minds of all who caught them first time around.

A decade on and Ciaran has settled down, become a daddy, found time to get back into the recording studio and is now ready to reintroduce himself and his new songs. It seems apt therefore his new single out this week should be called ‘How Do Ya Do?’

However, Ciaran explains that reading is a little off the mark: “It’s not so much ‘How do you do?’ as in the forced way of saying hello or whatever. It’s more - how do you get through the day? Or get through the year? That’s the way I was coming at it.”

The single confirms Ciaran has surpassed the heights he achieved a decade ago. A live version of the ‘How Do Ya Do?’, along with three other tracks from the forthcoming album were recorded in a crowd-free studio setting in the Townhall Theatre by filmmaker Padraig Conaty, and this reviewer has had it on repeat for the last week. Jamie Byrne’s bass drives the tune while the intricate interplay of guitars by Daragh Slacke and Peter Denton along with Baz Fitzgerald’s rhythms inject an upbeat vibe, which is offset by O’Neill’s deadpan delivery and Paul Brennan’s melancholic pedal steel playing. Underpinning this assembly of creative musicians is O’Neill’s natural style - it’s not contrived. It’s glorious.

Ciaran describes his lyrics as “quite abstract”.

“I like to leave it up to the listener to take something from it, instead of me telling them what it is. If you show two people the same thing, they could both take something different from it - why would I try to tell them that either of those are wrong?”

A fan of O’Neill’s suggested to me his music is particular to Cavan - shaped by the county. It’s a nice thought, but I’m not so sure. He may well have just created an alt-country sound that could define - along with that other O’Neill, Lisa - what people consider Cavan music. If the album titled ‘Journey For Sight’ attracts the exposure it merits upon release this summer, it will find a welcome anywhere.

“I think they are better songs,” Ciaran says in comparing the new album with his debut. “We’ve thrown in a pedal steel man as well, that adds a new texture to the whole thing.

“Whereas the other album had more random songs in it that were just stuck together - which is cool too - I think this one sits nicely together as one piece.”

Ciaran assures he wasn’t sitting idle in those silent years.

“I kept writing, but just not as much. Songs were still coming but were just being drip fed to me.

“I’m a firm believer if you don’t have anything to say, you should sit down for a while. I didn’t feel the urge to bump out another album just because there was one before it.”

With ‘Journey For Sight’ Ciaran certainly has something to say, and it is definitely worth listening to. He knows the hard work lies ahead in getting the songs out there.

“We’re literally at zero starting off again, so yeah, here goes. Bottom of the mountain!”

First step up the incline is their concert in the Townhall Cavan on Saturday night. He will have Belturbet singer-songwriter Fiona Maria Fitzpatrick providing support, who incidentally featured on O’Neill’s debut album.

It’ll be Ciaran’s first gig in front of a live audience for eight or nine years.

“I’m equally excited and apprehensive about it,” Ciaran says with a laugh. “We’re getting the practice in, and as long as we have all the prep done, we’ll be alright.”

Ciaran O'Neill & Co play the Townhall Cavan this Saturday, March 25 at 8pm. For tickets see: townhallcavan.com