Brigid Mae Power remembers the candles and the tears and the stunned, silent grief.
“I was visiting London. My friend told me there was a vigil in Camden for Ashling. I was so moved by the whole thing,” the English-born, Galway-based songwriter says. “It was a sea of mostly Irish – but not only Irish – paying their respects.”
It was January 2022, and, at home and abroad, people struggled to make sense of the death of Ashling Murphy, the teacher and traditional musician killed while jogging along the Grand Canal in Tullamore. Returning from London to her home outside Galway city, Power tearfully brainstormed the first few bars of Ashling, a haunting standout from her torrid and gut-punching fourth LP, Dream from the Deep Well, which has just been released.
“I wrote that when I came home,” says Power, an artist with first-hand experience of gender violence. “It’s about experiencing the vigil.”
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Ashling is a difficult song to listen to. It’s about bereavement and loss, intergenerational trauma, centuries of abuse and the present epidemic of violence against women. “There’s been many before,” Power sings in a lilt splintered with emotion, “many women like Ashling of Tullamore ... and today we mourn them all.”
What struck her about the vigil in London was that it transcended age. Women from across generations had come out to pay their respects – to be with one another and offer their empathy and solidarity. “There were men and women of all ages, but mostly women that were upset,” she says of the vigil. “Women in their 80s. It was a very emotional day.”
Power’s work tends to attract earthy adjectives. She has been described as a “folk PJ Harvey” and praised for “experimenting with the parameters of traditional music in unlit car parks and remote churches” – a reference to her love for performing in unusual and esoteric spaces.
But while there is a folk component to what Power does – take away the guitar and Ashling could be a sean-nós song – she sees it as a jumping-off point rather than a destination. Dead Can Dance, Cocteau Twins and Tim Buckley are some influences that emerge from the swathe of feeling that cloaks Dream from the Deep Well. (The LP includes a cover of Buckley’s Lord I Must Have Been Blind.) She also draws on the same “post-folk” sounds excavated so rewardingly by groups such as Lankum and Ye Vagabonds.
“I’m really close friends with some of the people in those bands. I always sing a few trad songs in my set. I’d love to be seen as their peers: that would be an honour. But I do have this whole American influence. I spent a lot of time there as a young adult, going back and forth. I love jazz. I love trad. But I couldn’t just be a trad singer.”
Power has spent her life moving between worlds. At the age of 11 she relocated from London to Galway, where the freedom she had known in the UK gave way to something more judgmental, the tower blocks replaced by twitching curtains.
“It was a huge change. Somebody told me recently that going from a big place to a small one is a lot harder,” she says. “I got in arguments with the nuns pretty quickly when I started at this convent school [in Galway]. In London everybody was sassy and questioning.
“The kids were running circles around the teachers. I was in a big London-Irish environment. When I came to Galway it was very different – very middle class, very reserved. It was a big challenge. I’m still adapting.”
I really didn’t think it through. I’d be playing gigs, people will come up – usually older men – who will want to know details
Galway, at that time, seemed quite monochrome, at least compared to London. “I always say that, growing up in London, I didn’t know anybody English. The kids were either Irish or Jamaican, Trinidadian. That mix of cultures – it’s a whole different way of life. You are trying to hold on to your culture. But you are also a little bit liberated from the [Catholic] Church. There is this anonymity as well. I found that very different to come back [to Galway] all of a sudden, [where] it’s very much keeping up appearances. A different vibe.”
Power is friendly but cautious about how much of her private life she puts into the spotlight. In November 2018, a year after the unmasking of Harvey Weinstein as an abuser had precipitated the #MeToo movement, she wrote a blog post titled “#MeToo Part 1″.
It detailed an abusive relationship and a subsequent separate sexual assault involving a spiked drink. Five years later she is proud to have added her voice to the many women discussing their experiences. That said, she is anxious that one blog post from five years ago not define her.
“I wouldn’t say I regret doing it. It felt very important at the time. I had so many women and musicians getting in touch and sharing their stories, and it did really feel that was sort of the beginning of people [speaking out],” she says.
The flip side is that the Tumblr post has followed her to an extent she did not expect. “I underestimated how vulnerable I would feel with everyone knowing my business. I really didn’t think it through. I’d be playing gigs, people will come up – usually older men – who will want to know details. I might just be about to do a gig: it sends me back to a place I don’t want to [go].
“It is an experience I shouldn’t have had. I’ve lived through it. It doesn’t define me. I don’t want to be known for that. So I do kind of regret it. There was a bit of sensationalism about it. People would say they wanted to review the album. When it came out they would just be talking about [the blog]. It made me careful about what I share.”
One of the legacies of #MeToo was that it lifted the rock and exposed the misogyny of the entertainment industry – except for the music industry, where #MeToo remains an alien concept. In Ireland, where women artists continue to receive short shrift on radio playlists and the cult of the shaggy male songwriter rules supreme, the issue is especially pronounced.
“There are good and bad days. Last summer, for example, in the context of working, I met more sound engineers who were very difficult and misogynist than I didn’t,” says Power. “It was more noticeable when I worked with one who was respectful. That’s hard. You really try and bite your tongue.”
The music industry seems to have a gender problem globally. But she is struck at how visible an issue it in Ireland. People don’t even pretend to hide their prejudices, she says.
One complication is that in Ireland everybody knows everybody. When she comes across an unhelpful technician, they may have a common connection, which makes the encounter even more awkward.
“Sometimes, if you’re suffocating it’s because it’s a small island. You may not know this person. But you may know someone who knows them. There are a lot of really compassionate men, who don’t treat women like that in Ireland. Some of my closest friends are men that understand. But I do think ... yeah, I could write an essay on it, on what it’s like to be a woman. It’s like [male sound engineers] feel threatened by me – and then their attitude changes.”
Dream from the Deep Well is released by Fire Records
