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SUNDAY TIMES, June 01, 2003
Music: Inisheer’s west coast sound
Singer Lasairfhiona Ni Chonaola may be steeped in the traditional

music of the Aran Islands but her ambitions are strictly Californian,

she tells Mick Heaney

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They are, so the myth goes, the repositories of authentic Irishness, the last bastions of a way of life long gone elsewhere. Ever since
1898, when W B Yeats advised a struggling J M Synge to go west and draw on the untapped wellspring of primal Celtic creativity
waiting for him there, the Aran Islands have been a byword for Irish culture at its purest, the wild beauty of its topography reflecting
a tradition untamed and uncontaminated by outside influences and contemporary mores.
Throughout her life, Lasairfhiona Ni Chonaola has been immersed in this legacy. From the beginning it infused her music. She paints
an evocative picture of the windswept majesty of her island home where, as a child, she would sit under the rough stone walls of her
native Inisheer singing to herself, her mother able to locate her by following the song.

And sure enough, Ni Chonaola’s debut album, An Raicin Alainn, is awash with elegaic songs that seem to echo the Spartan integrity
of her offshore home. Her singing is crystalline without being cold, intimate yet resonant. But just as the islands’ image of supposedly
unsullied tradition is perpetrated through the mass marketing of Aran sweaters and a regular airline link with the mainland, so
Ni Chonaola’s musical authenticity is underpinned by a sensibility and drive that owes more to the Celtic tiger than the Celtic revival.
Ni Chonaola can play the local culture card with wide-eyed sincerity, but it’s also the springboard to something less parochial.
“There is something in the islands, a sense of mystery,” she says. “It’s hard to define what’s special about them; but I was quite
privileged to be raised there. The song and the singer were appreciated, there was silence for a person that sang, so it gave me the
confidence to sing — I expected to be listened to.

“But I also live in the modern era. I wasn’t brought up with a gramophone, so there are influences from nowadays and you have to
go with that. You can’t live in the past. It’s why I like living in the city and on the island. On the island I can relax with the sea around
me, then go to the hustle and bustle of the city.”
As she sips her coffee in a clattering cappuccino bar, Ni Chonaola seems at home with Galway’s particular brand of assertive
urban cosmopolitanism.
Her career to date has been very much of her own making, researching her songs and raising the money to independently release
her album.

Now in her late twenties with a degree in Celtic studies from Trinity College Dublin, she has proved herself adept at seizing the
opportunities provided by the often lucrative market for pan-Celtic music abroad. Her first break came not from Ireland but through
French producer Hector Zazou’s 1998 album of sacred Irish songs, Lights in the Dark, to which she contributed four tracks.
If Ni Chonaola subsequently took her time before releasing her first solo album, it has largely been because of her desire to maintain
creative control. She sporadically performed at diverse venues — at the Montreux jazz festival, in front of 12,000 people at an
open-air concert in Brittany, at a native American event in California — but mainly she spent the intervening years teaching and
translating to earn the cash to pay for the album.
“Music is what I’m supposed to do. I come from a family of artists, so maybe that’s it — if you’ve a skill or a gift, whatever’s out
there will help you along. Of course there’ll be a few challenges to test you. But I just knew it was the right time. I follow my
intuition — maybe that sounds very airy-fairy, but it has helped me.

“And I was very determined. I think my determination just got me through. I haven’t had to compromise so far. I’m a risk taker
as well, I get a buzz from trying out new ideas. The art thing pushes me on.”
Just as she finds herself drawn to both urban bustle and island arcadia, so Ni Chonaola seems caught between the aesthetic purity
she sees in her family background — her father, Dara O Chonaola, is a writer and occasional lyricist for his daughter, while her
photographer brother also sings on the album — and the need to push her career forward.
At times, even her new age artistic motivations sound unnervingly close to the self-satisfied bohemianism that often pervades
Galway’s cultural commercialism. She says the spur for making her album in 2002 was the arrival of the Chinese year of the horse,
which tied into the equine Celtic symbol for passion and her own passion for music. Oh dear.
Ni Chonaola seems unlikely to fall into the rut of smug raggle-taggle neo-Celticism, however, thanks to her cheerful sincerity, her
gentle self-deprecation and, most importantly, her peerless talent. Her singing possesses a timeless quality that appeals to trad
purists and fans of contemporary Irish music alike, mixing poignant sean-nos songs with jaunty lilting and joyful tales of mythical
japery. Even a tentative venture into new age territory — Oilean na Teiscinne, about the “Aran mystique” — works well.

The unaccompanied sean-nos numbers aside, the music shuns the synthesiser wash of much modern folk for an understated
backing of guitar, viola and bodhran. “I felt the songs just needed a little light coating, not the full batter,” she laughs. “There
was no need to throw them in the deep fryer.” Respectful of the songs without being reverent, rooted in tradition while appealing
to a wider audience, Ni Chonaola may be the perfect singer to ensure the future of Irish folk.
Though several of her songs were handed down orally by family and friends, she lacks the self-conscious curatorial awareness
of other contemporary sean-nos singers such as Iarla O Lionaird.

Equally, however, she has not been given to lumpy world dance- fusion diversions such as O Lionaird’s uneven collaborations
with the Afro Celt Sound System. And while stars such as Sinead O’Connor have attempted to reinvigorate the sean-nos tradition
with mixed results, Ni Chonaola’s clear vocals imbue her music with a quality beyond that of the dilettante.
There are those who may wonder whether Ni Chonaola’s music can raise itself above some of its contradictions: whether her
innovative instincts will pull away her traditional roots, if the eager aesthete will overload the determined career singer. But the girl
who sang to herself as a child not only raised her voice — for the moment at least, she has raised the bar for Irish music.
“When I sing I feel like I have more of a connection with people. I can be very introverted, but I obviously like the attention
of the audiences as well. I suppose I’m just trying to follow my dreams.
“It sounds very Californian; but you can’t just keep staying in the same spot, you have to grow. Sean-nos singing is my
backbone, but it’s like a plant in a pot — sometimes the plant outgrows itself. So this is only the start.”

Lasairfhiona Ni Chonaola plays the Town Hall theatre, Galway, on Thursday

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