SHE has travelled all over the world with her music, but singer/songwriter Susan O’Neill has never forgotten her Ennis roots. From early years performing as one the youngest members of the Ennis Brass Band and the Ennis Gospel Choir she has gone on to headline solo shows, take the stage with the likes of Sharon Shannon and Mick Flannery and been an invited guest to an array of artists including Phoebe Bridgers, Valerie June and The Teskey Brothers.
Susan recently released her new solo album ‘Now in a Minute’ and speaking to The Clare Champion ahead of an upcoming show on October 11 in glór she reflects fondly on her younger days in Ennis and the musical experiences she learned from.
She recalls, “One of the most important things I learned from was the kindness given by people like the McAllister family in the brass band who taught me to read and write music, Bernard McAllister in particular. He managed to do it in a way where I never realised I was learning. When people, especially younger people, are given an opportunity to do community music it means so much.
“From those experiences I learned that sounds made by many people, it’s like alchemy. It changes your mood. It changes the way you are.
“You are not the same when you leave as the way you felt when you walked in that door. It’s magic. I think it’s so profound and potent and I think we should celebrate it even more within our community.”
She reveals she would love to come back to the groups she started off with and work on some kind of collaborations.
“I’d love to consider it, if our schedules could align. I spend a lot of time on the road so that’s hard and I do a lot of work remotely, a lot of work in my headphones, but I would love to,” she said.
Music has played a major key throughout Susan’s life growing up in County Clare.
“It was the one thing there was no question about. I found my mother’s and father’s records when I was younger, I discovered Beethoven and Mozart because of my mam and the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Madness and the brass through my dad. It was always the thing that made the most sense to me. I think as a child a lot of things didn’t make sense, but music always did,” she said.
Later on she worked in bars in the county capital, soaking up the musical atmosphere.
“I worked for a while in Faffas and there was always the best trad. The most amazing musicians coming in doing sessions,” she said.
“I knew I was spoiled. I was just absolutely in love with my job. I would serve pints and come around and collect glasses and sing a tune whenever they asked. I always loved being surrounded by trad. We went to Willie Clancy when I was younger, I still go now when I can. We spent a lot of time in Spanish Point when I was much younger and Willie Clancy was a part of my childhood.
“I was always very aware of music being a kind of communal thing and of it being very important.
“It would just change the mood and spirits of everyone. After listening to music for two hours everyone was just in brilliant form, it was like we’ve done something collective and really important together.”
However Susan’s young start as a musician wasn’t always such a positive experience. She came to national attention aged just 16 when she appeared on the popular RTÉ TV talent show You’re a Star. It’s a time she doesn’t often think about these days, she says when asked if she learned anything from her involvement with the show.
“I did learn a lot from it, I learned a lot of kind of harsh lessons in terms of what is maybe the less forgiving side of what the music industry is. Music to me is community and joy and supporting and celebrating.
“From that, I realised there is a kind of ‘click-baity’ aspect. It’s not that the artists involved aren’t coming from a place whereby they love it, but if you are very young you don’t really see the wider kind of agendas of a programme like that. So really I learned a lot. I value the experience massively. It’s not something I really think about very much any more because as music experiences go I think I have a beautiful kind of array of experiences that I now reflect on over the past probably 15 years, it’s that long. As soon as I finished it, I went to college and did music for four years doing a BA and ever since then I’ve been playing.
“Weddings, celebrations, funerals, get togethers, folk nights. I’ve had a very, very diverse collection of musical happenings over the past 15 years. Really looking at it now it’s just one tiny little experience beside all of the rest, it just happened to come very early in my life.”
Susan’s new solo album ‘Now in a Minute’ released this month was recorded over the past 18 months between Clare and Cork, with Wexford brothers Cillian and Lorcan Byrne, Killian Browne and Christian Best also on producing duties.
The recording follows on from Susan’s 2021 collaboration album with Mick Flannery ‘In The Game’ which was nominated for the Choice Music Prize and the RTE 1 ‘Best Folk Album of the year’, The album was the biggest independent selling Irish album that year. As well as collaborating on many songs with all of the musicians on this new album, ‘Now in a Minute’ also sees Susan reunite with Mick Flannery on a selection of co-writes for this record.
“It’s really nice to complete something and see it get to fruition and get to the moment where it is being shared,” she says. The album sees her explore new directions with her music. “There are themes I would have never written about before, not just personal, though it is very personal, but there is gentrification, dealing with blues, dealing with the kinds of pains and tribulations of growth and what it is to be a woman and what it is to be human,” she said.
“There’s a song called ‘Bright Eyes’ where I’m talking about eye contact and the value of sharing love and kindness.
“How your presence with somebody in the community can change, how it can help us along. That it is in togetherness that we prevail as people and we evolve.”
While this is a solo album, Susan insists “there were a lot of different hearts and minds going into it as well” as she acknowledges all those who helped in its development.
Some of the album was worked on while Susan spent Covid lock-down as ‘artist in residence’ living in Doolin Hotel. She explains, “I was in Australia when the pandemic came and I had to get an emergency flight home. Because I had planned to be abroad for a couple of months I had packed my whole life into a box and when I came back I didn’t have a studio space or place to work from.
“Doolin Hotel allowed me to work there and become an artist in residency while they were closed, there was this huge kindness shown to me. It was an amazing thing,” she said.
She recalls, “I was really the only one there. It was incredibly quiet. They’re so used to having tourists there, but I remember going for a cycle one day and seeing only cows, dogs, cats, sheep and a few horses, but no humans.
“It offered this huge introspective time, this moment to really reflect on who I was as a person and what I was doing.
“I would go back and write or play music, really tune into the reasons why. It was invaluable to get that time.”
As well as her music, in more recent years Susan has ventured into directing.
Her debut ‘The Space between- An Spás Eadrainn’ a multidisciplinary art sharing documentary was broadcast on TG4 in 2022 and she reveals there are plans for a follow-up.
The project involves Susan inviting an array of musicians, authors, actors, dancers, painters, potters and much more to collaborate in the great hall of Bunratty Castle.
“It’s always different, artists sharing one space at a given moment and talking about what art is for them. It’s a project very close to my heart,” she said.
To coincide with the album release Susan has embarked on a tour of Ireland ahead of more dates bringing her much further afield next year.
As part of her Irish tour she will be performing a homecoming show in Ennis’ glór on October 11, 2024.
“I’m absolutely looking forward to the glór gig. We played there about a year and a half ago and it was a stunning night,” she said.
“I played there over the years many times in many variations, band nights when I was in school, with the Gospel Choir. And now coming back and singing folk songs I’ve been writing over the course of the last couple of years is going to be a really nice opportunity.
“I have a bit of world tour coming up in the new year, that is being formulated at the moment. Doing an extensive tour of Ireland before I head away, I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of places I’m familiar with before adventuring again because when you go and take on far away lands it feels a little bit like you are leaving something behind for a while to start again. I’m really grateful to see home turf properly before going and visiting a lot of the counties that I love.”