I spent the first six years of my life in the suburbs of Belfast. Then my parents quit their jobs and left for rural Donegal.
They bought a pub in the Gaeltacht, and we spent five years there. A lot of that time I spent with my ear pressed on the floorboards of my bedroom trying to figure out who was in the pub, what music was being played, who was getting too drunk, who was causing trouble.
We did everything in Irish. I learned it quickly, as kids do. When I left Donegal and moved back to Belfast, the school didn’t offer Irish. I tried to keep it up – I was taking myself to night classes as a 14-year-old – but it became too hard. I carry a huge sense of shame and guilt because I lost my fluency. That loss feels very connected to losing a sense of Irishness.
[Filmmaker] Myrid Carten and I grew up together. We made videos all the time. For my 22nd birthday, she brought out all these home videos and we watched them. We were all speaking Irish. I was watching myself as a child speaking this language that as an adult, I couldn’t understand. It was such a weird experience – that disconnect between the version of myself who was so confident and fluent, and the adult watching.
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My dad’s a Catholic, my mum’s a Protestant. He’s from the South, she’s from the North. We’re always talking about Irishness. My mum feels very Irish as well. We talk about what it means to feel Irish and be from the North, and how that’s changed over the last hundred years, and more.
An interesting thing she loves to remind me of is that her great-grandmother and great-grandfather, according to the census, spoke English and Irish fluently. Then as the years go on, the Irish is lost.
When I moved to Dublin for college, I thought I was going to regain some of that Irishness I’d lost. I would cross the Border and everyone would be waiting for me with open arms, ready to receive the lost child and my Irishness would just fall into place.
I didn’t realise that my accent would stand me apart and that actually, a lot of people are uncomfortable with the notion of the North. On a bus full of drunk college students, posh Dublin boys would sing ra (IRA) songs and in the same breath, tell me I wasn’t Irish because of my northern accent. I couldn’t understand how little they understood. They were literally singing about dying for Ireland and all of a sudden they were, what? Partitionists?
When people think of Belfast and the North, the Troubles is probably one of the first things they think about. But my idea of Belfast [is different].
If you go back to 1798 and the Rebellion and the United Irishmen – that movement was brought together in Belfast. And in the 18th century, traditional harp was brought alive again in Belfast. So much history of Irishness and what we know Irishness to be today started in Belfast or was cultivated there.
As I was finishing college, I met Gemma [Doherty] and went on to form [the band] Saint Sister. Irish folk music was a big influence, especially in terms of instrumentation. I was unconsciously writing songs that were like eight verses long with no chorus. I realised I was imitating the long tradition of storytelling within the Irish folk tradition.
Even though the songs at the moment [as solo artist, Morgana] are more pop, I’m still very inspired by Irish traditional music. Every time I go to write a song in the last year, I put on Mary O’Hara’s Oró mo Bháidín, to focus my brain. Her vocals are so gorgeous and so timeless.
I’m in the process of moving back to Belfast. I wouldn’t be moving if I wasn’t forced to, financially. I know when the time comes, Belfast will become my home, but it’s not a nice feeling. I spent 15 years of my life building up a community in Dublin, playing shows and going to people’s shows and feeling part of that landscape.
A lot of people are making a lot of money while we hit record numbers of child homelessness. Landlords, land speculators, builders, vulture funds. A generous reading is that the Government is engaging in short-term thinking; a more accurate reading is that we’re being f**ked while the rich get rich.
[ Morgan MacIntyre: ‘I can’t sing without making shapes and casting spells’Opens in new window ]
The main parties always present themselves as well-meaning but powerless to change the housing situation. If you’re incapable of fixing it, why should people vote for you? And they’re only incapable because they’re unwilling to challenge corporate power.
They’ve ended up in a situation where people are blaming migrants, and they seem comfortable with this because it takes the focus off those who are actually responsible.
My new single, I’m Not Going Anywhere, is an ode to those of us sticking around despite the world falling apart. The rents are too high, it’s too expensive to live, and yet I wanted to say: you will not kick me out. I will not be removed. I will cling on, no matter how hard you make it for me. I love you. I love my friends. I love the music and the gigs. I will kill you with kindness. I will hold you like a baby and sing my songs until you drag me out kicking and screaming.
In conversation with Niamh Donnelly. This interview is part of a series about well-known people’s lives and relationship with Ireland. Morgana’s new single, I’m Not Going Anywhere, is out on September 24th. Morgana plays Belfast, Limerick, Dublin, Cork and London in October. For tickets see morgana.ie.
