His home island of Inis Mór off the coast of Galway has inspired the debut album from Padraig Jack.
Making Sand – released yesterday – was recorded in London and produced by John Reynolds (Sinéad O’Connor, Damien Dempsey, Shane McGowan).
The album includes the lead single Minnie which was released to excellent reviews both in Ireland and the UK, as well as Streetbed Ridden, the single released back in March that tackled the issue of homelessness.
The album title is taken from the track Making Sand, which is, in Padraig’s view, the most meaningful song on the album, as it is inspired by Inis Mór in the Aran Islands.
The island’s landscape is rugged and scattered with bronze age stone ring-forts, ancient monasteries and churches founded by saints.
Making Sand attempts to capture a sense of the awesome historical and cultural importance of the island while acknowledging that. despite all the history and current societal activity, the inhabitants of the island are ‘just making sand out here’ and only passing through.
Padraig Jack (O Flaithearta) was born into a musical family from the Aran Islands. His dad is the songwriter Barry Ronan and he is the nephew of the Irish poet and Aosdána member Mary O’Malley. Padraig is proudly bilingual both as a conversationalist and a songwriter.
Padraig Jack’s songwriting heroes include James Taylor, Van Morrison, Shane McGowan, Sandy Denny and Jimmy McCarthy. He seeks to develop his own songwriting style in the Irish language and takes inspiration from Enya, Kíla, John Spillane and Peadar Ó Riada.
During ‘lockdown’ he set up his own home music studio as well as negotiating a publishing deal with Beautiful World and Downtown Publishing whose roster includes Ryan Tedder, Joan Baez, Ray Davies and John Prine.
Padraig will be gigging in the coming months, both solo (including on 9th October at the Róisín Dubh, Galway), and as a guest with Damien Dempsey. For those who can’t travel to see him, Padraig will be celebrating the launch of his album with a livestream from his website on 11th October.
