A Star is reborn at Ennis Trad Fest

SINGER Ann Kirrane, daughter of the legendary Chris Droney, is set to relaunch her CD, One Small Star, at the Ennis Trad Festival on Saturday at 5pm in the Temple Gate Hotel.

 

When she spoke to The Clare Champion last Friday, she was just back from the US and had spent some time in New York City as it was pounded by Hurricane Sandy.

“I had been in New Jersey with my cousins but I had left before the hurricane started and that’s where the main damage was done. Some of them have property in the coastal area and it’s in a proper mess down there,” she said.

“I got into New York on Saturday, October 27. There were signs of the hurricane coming at that point but it was ok. On the Sunday, I was in a hotel on Seventh Avenue and we weren’t let out the door for the day because there was scaffolding loosening on a building beside us.

“It was unique to have the whole street deserted. There was nobody outside except eight policemen patrolling up and down to make sure nobody else went outside,” Ann added.

The visit to New York was the tail end of her time Stateside. “I was on a bit of a tour. I was in Boston and Hartford on the way out and then out to San Francisco and back by New York.

“It was great, particularly San Francisco where I had been invited out to a festival. I played in the Plough and the Stars pub as well. Paddy Keenan and Mike McGoldrick were there and some other great musicians.”

The hurricane saw the worst storm surge in New York’s history and dozens died in the city. Ann said there was anxiety among her family and friends.

“I got back in one piece and that was the main thing. I had the world and its mother contacting me to know if I was dead or alive. It gave you an idea of what it was like on 9/11, although it was on a smaller scale.”

Ann now lives in Tuam and her CD was recorded in the Sun Street Studios in the North Galway town, which have been used by the Saw Doctors.

“I recorded it mainly as a tribute to my husband, who died four years ago. He was a great man of music,” she says.

Her family is steeped in trad but when she moved to Tuam she took a different path. “My background is in concertina but when I came to Tuam in the late ’70s there wasn’t a lot of trad so I got sucked into musical theatre and I was involved in 25 or 26 musicals. Of course, nobody had ever heard of a Droney singing so it came as a bit of a shock.”

The CD does include some trad and has some of her own compositions. “There’s a great song written by a guy from Gort called Working the Streets. there’s also The Green Hills of Clare and Chris, my father, plays on that as well. It’s not often you get your nearly 88 year old father to play on a track.

“It’s a fairly wide-ranging CD in terms of genres of music. there’s a bit of gospel, contemporary songs, folk and a bit of trad. Since I was playing concertina long before I ever sang a song, I said that I’d throw in a few tunes that I composed myself.

“When I was young I used to play up in Lisdoonvarna in the Kincora with Kitty Linnane, Paddy Mullins, Tommy Peoples and all these, so I said I’d throw in a few tunes. I do play a lot of music as well, it’s not all about singing,” she concluded.