Clare musician adds another string to her bow with podcast

AN Ennis-based fiddle player, singer, music teacher and broadcaster has added yet another string to her bow by launching a new podcast. Therese McInerney has been putting the time gained while the country was on lock-down to good use by developing “Tradcast with Therese”. She now hopes the podcast will provide a valuable resource for other traditional musicians, with a number of well-known names already lined up to take part and share their experiences.
“With the arts sector taking a huge hit at the moment, I was fortunate to receive funding from the Arts Council of Ireland as part of their Covid-19 crisis response award to research, present and produce this podcast,” she explains.
Developing a podcast has been something she has wanted to do for a long time, but before Covid she never had the time, she reveals. “I also wanted it to be more of a resource to give back and help up-and-coming traditional artists, basically the resource that I never had.”
She tells us the podcast aims to be a “useful, free resource for traditional artists where they can get information, ask questions and voice concerns about all areas of life in traditional arts.” Each episode has a different theme, with the first episode kicking off on the topic of online teaching. 
The Miltown-Malbay native outlines when it came to developing the podcast she didn’t want to just do a version of her show on Clare FM The West Wind, by just talking about music. “I wanted it to be an industry podcast because as artists, we don’t actually have a lot of time to work on our performance / art. We have to be our own accountants, receptionist, booking agents, website designers, technical experts and our own sound engineers at smaller gigs. Excellent at marketing, branding and social media. We have to be brilliant writers to apply for funding, and I just thought it would be nice to have a bit of advice on all these other areas so we can get back to doing what we’re meant to be doing and that’s working on our music, song and performing skills.”
This Friday the podcast’s third episode will feature Jack Talty of Raelach Records. According to Therese, Jack “will be giving an amazing insight into the recording process and brilliant advice and tips for anyone looking to record or promote their first album.”
The following Friday listeners will hear an interview “like you’ve never heard before” with Tara Howley, uilleann piper of Riverdance. “We had a real, honest chat about what life is really like as a full time touring professional musician, about following your own path and what it’s like to make traditional music your full time job. I hope it gives someone who is thinking of going down that path guidance and information. I’d also love if people who aren’t full time musicians could listen because there seems to be a stigma attached to making music your full time career, like Tara and I have. When you start off, you constantly have to justify your job to people, that you just don’t get in a lot of other careers. I hope this will help people to realise there’s an awful lot more to it than playing a few tunes.
Covid-19 restrictions has meant many people have had to adapt to a whole way of working, including Therese on this venture.
“The first two podcasts I did were ‘solo casts’ so I just recorded them myself at home with my own equipment. I spoke about online learning and gave tips for online teaching in the first podcast, which is something so many teachers and students have had to adapt to since the start of the pandemic. 
“I have a wonderful little desk called a rodecaster so I can call guests on zoom and do my interviews over the phone. It’s a lot of work: researching, scripting, presenting, editing, uploading and marketing. The 20 minute episode you hear has three full days work in it so I’m very grateful that the Arts Council supported the podcast.”
She hopes that the recording will be of help to traditional artists. “If they pick up a couple of tips in each episode to help them in their careers I will be so happy. The part I find the hardest is marketing it and spreading the word that the resource is there and getting it to the people who would be interested in it so I’m really grateful to anyone who takes the time to leave a review on Apple Podcast and shares on their social media, it means a lot. If anyone has any particular topics they would like covered or questions you have, you can get in touch on the contact page on my website.”
Tradcast with Therese can be accessed free of charge on Apple Music, Spotify and all your favourite podcast platforms or go to www.theresemcinerney.com or Therese McInerney Music & Media on Instagram or Facebook, where she also welcomes submissions of any trad music industry questions or concerns.