Delighted to announce ALL MY DREAM COMPANIONS GONE, my brand new album!

The launch show is at 8pm on May 29th at Droichead Arts Centre in Drogheda, with a band featuring Róisín Ward Morrow, Trevor Hutchinson and Graham Henderson. Tickets available from the website.

All My Dream Companions Gone is a new song cycle set in Drogheda during World War I.

This new set of songs is a patchwork of emotional, relatable stories. Songs of the people. Small stories with great truths. Tales of trench and table, war and want, the massive and the mundane.

200,000 young men from the island of Ireland fought in World War I, including two of my great-grandfathers. They returned from the horror of the trenches, their British uniforms ill-fitting in a changed Ireland with a fresh sense of its nationhood.

The song-cycle format allows many perspectives on what is a layered and complex time. Complementing this, the great Dublin singer, actor and folklorist Lisa Lambe sings two of the album’s most affecting songs, “The Separation Waltz” and “In The Spring”.

The band on the album also includes Trevor Hutchinson on double bass (Lúnasa, The Waterboys), Graham Henderson on accordion and keyboards (Fairground Attraction, Moving Hearts), critically-acclaimed Louth vocalist and fiddler Róisín Ward Morrow, singer and flautist Nuala Kennedy (Solas, The Alt) and longtime SJ collaborators, vocalists John Ruddy and Gene Carolan.

Beautifully packaged by Once Upon Design with a stunning painting by the great Jackie Hudson Lalor (more on this later!) and photos by Brian Connolly.

The project is supported by Droichead Arts Centre and Louth County Council Arts Office.