SJ McArdle is an Irish folk songwriter “whose work feels deeply literary and atmospheric, often exploring memory, mining history in a very human way” (Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, RTÉ).

He is known for his PORT song-cycle project and its accompanying RTÉ Radio 1 Album Of The Week Old Ghosts In The Water, his previous work in award-winning Irish folk band Kern and his career as a singer-songwriter in Nashville and Germany. SJ’s songs and performances have been featured in radio, film and television and he has toured and recorded extensively in Ireland, Europe and North America. SJ is also one third of Long Woman’s Grave, featuring Nuala Kennedy and Trevor Hutchinson.

SJ’s songs and performances have been featured in radio, film and television and he has toured and recorded extensively in Ireland, Europe and North America, gathering a loyal following and critical accolades along the way.

His new album, “All My Dream Companions Gone” deals with the impact of World War I on his home town and exploring a very complex period of history through the stories of ordinary people. 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. This new album 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.

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), singer and flautist Nuala Kennedy (Solas, The Alt) and legendary percussionists Noel Eccles and Jimmy Higgins.

While with Kern, SJ released two critically-acclaimed albums, both produced by Trevor Hutchinson (Lúnasa, The Waterboys). The albums are a mix of songs and tunes from the band’s home County of Louth along with SJ’s songs and the band garnered plenty of national airplay in Ireland (including RTE Lyric FM and Radio 1), including live appearances on RTÉ Radio 1, Newstalk’s Pat Kenny Show and Raidio na Gaeltachta. The albums have also received some impressive reviews. A playlist of some of the songs written by SJ and performed with Kern is here.

As a solo singer-songwriter, SJ has also released three albums, most recently Blood and Bones in  2014. The songs feature contributions from some of SJ’s heroes like Rodney Crowell, guitarist Richard Bennett (Steve Earle’s Guitar Town) and the Love Sponge Strings (Bruce Springsteen’s The Rising).

The album’s lead-off song, “Two Steps From Heaven” was the main song in the Cecelia Ahern-written movie Between Heaven and Here. Accompanying the album release was some significant media attention and reviews and very successful German and Irish tours.

Another of SJ’s songs, “Till The Docklands Drown”, is performed during Element Pictures’ A Date For Mad Mary (2016) and several of his readings of traditional Irish songs are featured in the 2019 movie End of Sentence, starring Sarah Bolger, Logan Lerman and John Hawkes.

He performed songs from Blood and Bones live on the Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show on Today FM and on Ireland AM on TV3.

In 2009 he completed a European arena tour as special guest to Reamonn, playing to 70,000 people over three weeks.

SJ has also been in occasional demand as a session musician, playing mandolin for Ricky Warwick as they opened shows for Bob Dylan (Odyssey, Belfast) and Sheryl Crow (Point, Dublin). He has also shared a stage or studio with Neil Hannon, Stewart Agnew, Joe Elliott and Miss Paula Flynn.

Praise for Old Ghosts in the Water:

“An impressive song cycle … the songs are intriguing and evocative; they are rooted in folk but coloured by expansive and imaginative arrangements.” – The Irish Times

“What a great, great collection of songs this is from SJ McArdle. I urge you to go out and get it.” – Fiachna Ó Braonáin (The Hothouse Flowers, RTÉ)

“All the ingredients of great folk songs” – Lynette Fay (BBC)

Other reviews:

“A talented writer of both contemporary and traditional-style songs with immediate earworm qualities.” – Seamas Shiels, Fonn magazine

“SJ McArdle, who has had a successful solo career cultivating a rootsy folk-rock sound, can’t fail to capture your attention, with a sonorous voice – not unlike Garnet Rogers’s – that can be gritty and gruff yet also unexpectedly tender, even vulnerable. His writing exhibits a similar versatility.” – Sean Smith, Boston Irish

“A singer-songwriter with gravelly vocals and some gut-wrenching original songs about emigration and the hometown blues.” – Tom Keller, Folkworld.eu

“Quite lovely … McArdle’s voice has a breathy gruffness to it that is commanding without being loud, and it sets a strong tone. ‘The Hard Wind’, a McArdle original, is a lively, cutting song about Irish soldiers who returned to Ireland after World War I to acrimony and indifference.” – Daniel Neely, The Irish Echo

“(In ‘The Hard Wind’) SJ McArdle has written a really fine and brave song … really interesting, powerful and complex”– Mike Harding

“His smoky voice seems to have the very patina of life itself ingrained within his vocal cords and this gives his recordings real identity.” – TradConnect

“Bravo for an artist who has taken contemporary Irish music to parts it far too seldom reaches” – Hot Press

“SJ’s deep, sonorous voice brings authority to the songs. If Whipping Boy were raised in Nashville they might sound like this” – Mail On Sunday

“Spare couplets conjuring entire vistas with the focus of David Lynch” – The Irish Times