It’s back!

PORT is a song cycle born of a year-long research and writing project around the history and stories of Drogheda’s ancient Port, conducted during my tenure as Artist in Association at Droichead Arts Centre in 2019.

Along with its accompanying critically-acclaimed RTÉ Radio 1 Album of the Week Old Ghosts In The Water, PORT is full of work songs, story songs, love songs to the sea. Songs written in anger and written in sorrow. Songs about injustice and change. Songs about people.

“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

Three shows are now on sale, with some more to be announced for the new year. See the LIVE page for details.

The band on the album and show features Carol Keogh (Plague Monkeys), Graham Henderson (Moving Hearts, Sinead O’Connor) and Trevor Hutchinson (Lúnasa, The Waterboys) along with vocalist John Ruddy and fiddle player Barry Kieran (Kern).

 “An ambitious project undertaken without the benefit of a safety net, Port sees Droichead Arts Centre artist-in-association SJ McArdle compose a song cycle about the vibrant history of (and “imagined stories” connected to) Drogheda Port. For the performance, McArdle will be joined by – for this writer’s pitiful pile of money – one of the best female voices out there, Carol Keogh.” – Tony Clayton-Lea, The Irish Times

Song notes from the album can be viewed here.

When I was appointed Artist in Association at Droichead Arts Centre it gave me the opportunity to realise an idea I had been turning over in his head and heart for years: a song-cycle based around Drogheda Port. The Port has been at the epicentre of life in the town of Drogheda for a millennium and more, providing culture and communication and food and escape and employment. It is tied to everything in the town and has played a role in every part of its history. But a port, by its nature, is also a link to other places, and to adventure and peril on the high seas. And of course the land-based stories of the port are just as rich, almost a converse of the stories of life at sea.

A year-long period of research and writing led initially to the conception of the live show. Producer Trevor Hutchinson and I then effectively started again from scratch, picking nine songs from the show and stripping them down completely to be reimagined for the album, adding musicians like accordion legend Dermot Byrne (Altan, Declan O’Rourke), Dundalk flute player Nuala Kennedy (The Alt) and uilleann piper Brendan McCreanor.

Port is produced by Droichead Arts Centre with sponsorship from Drogheda Port Company.

The Old Ghosts in the Water album was made with the deeply appreciated support of Droichead Arts Centre, Create Louth and the Arts Council Covid-19 Response Award.