Music for the Traveler to Ireland

Cathie Ryan, Irish singer, Photograph by Kerry Dexter

Destination: Ireland

Music: The Farthest Wave (Cathie Ryan)

Here is the second post by Kerry Dexter of Music Road. This time she talks about a recording that introduces you to Ireland.

Music for Ireland

Contemporary Ireland is a country of connection and intersection. History, myth, and legend live as part of to the present in both landscape and people. It’s also a completely twenty first century country, whose people laugh and grieve, enjoy family and face uncertainty, as their ancestors have and as people in the rest of the world do.

Singer and songwriter Cathie Ryan walks those intersections  in her recording The Farthest Wave.[Note: you can listen or buy from Amazon by following the link] There’s Dance the Baby, a lively set of slip jigs in Irish which Ryan’s grandfather used to sing while playing with Ryan and her brother and sister when they were small, and there’s Peata Beag do Mhathar, a loving and lively song between mother and child.

Cathie Ryan, Photograph by Kerry Dexter

Ryan’s own What’s Closest to the Heart is a swirling, sensuous dance of  quite another sort, an enigmatic invitation and reassurance framed in both Irish and English. Rough and Rocky is an American song which remains, in Ryan’s hands, both American and Irish in its reflection on  choices, journeys, and leaving loved ones behind

The Wild Flowers is a powerful and graceful song “for anyone who’s ever felt cast out of the garden,” Ryan says. It was written by contemporary Irish musician, John Spillane, and while his version is full of grit and hard knocks, Ryan sees that same determination as a flame of resilience and hope.

What Will You Do Love? a duet between Ryan and top Irish singer Sean Keane, is a traditional ballad of tests and persistence in love, framed in two voices whose connection is a thoughtful conversation.

The title track, The Farthest Wave, is a journey from grief to understanding to  the possibility of healing, framed in images of the natural world and touched by legend. It is also one Ryan wrote.

Ryan is a singer whose power and grace lies in restraint,  and a deep understanding of the words she sings, whether her own or others, whether in English or Irish. She’s been praised for her voice, and deservedly so. She’s also a writer and poet of vision, whose work is both contemporary and timeless.

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Photograph by Kerry Dexter, All rights reserved.

A Traveler’s Library wholeheartedly thanks Kerry Dexter for these two music posts–taking us to Scotland and Ireland in song. For more, see Kerry’s interview with Cathie Ryan at Music Road.

I hope you have enjoyed the two posts by Kerry Dexter about music for the traveler.  If you would like to have more posts about music and travel, please let me know in the comments section.  I always appreciate suggestions of books, movies, and music and people who might share their expertise here. See you around the Web, Kerry. VMB

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Tags: Amazon, Cathie Ryan, CD, guest post, Ireland, Kerry Dexter, Music, Travel