Growing up in Irish orphanages was difficult for singer Evon Brennan , but despite the hardship, she has never lost hope, or her sense of Irishness, she tells Tony Clayton-Lea
'From what I've been told, I was given to the authorities when I and my twin sister were two months old. I don't even know that we were taken from my mother or whether she gave us up voluntarily - that's speculation. I've never met my birth mother or father." While there are no hard and fast rules about these things, anyone with such a background of abandonment is either going to be bitter about their past and resigned to their present, or determined to put the past behind them and carry on living as best they can.
London-based singer and songwriter Evon Brennan is of the latter disposition; now in her 40s, she recalls that as toddlers she and her twin sister Carol - the children of a Dublin woman and a Ghanaian medical student - were sent to an orphanage in Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon. At the age of 10, they were sent to a similar institution in Sligo, and subsequently to Banada Abbey, Tourlestrane, Co Sligo, a convent school run partly as a day school for local children and as an orphanage for up to 30 waifs and strays.
It was at Banada Abbey that Brennan learned to play piano, which in turn started her on the road to songwriting. The Brennan sisters left Banada Abbey after completing their Leaving Certificate - Carol to London and Evon to Dublin, where she worked in a number of jobs by day and frequented music venues at night.
"I'd always been quite musical," says Brennan, "and wanted to do something in that area, but I didn't really have the confidence to do it, because it was always considered by the nuns as noise. I had piano lessons for a while, and loved playing, but that stopped very quickly. Piano playing was an escape into my own world, but there were lots of question marks in terms of how I would go about pursuing it. There was no explanation from the nuns as to what to do or how to go about that - it was just a matter of getting out and getting a job."
If Dublin proved to be an eye-opener, then her next two city destinations, London and Santa Monica, were life savers. Time in London was spent "doing any job that I could do just to survive, and looking for session work. The city gave me much more opportunities in music, and the fact that my colour didn't make me stick out like a sore thumb also helped - that was quite nice."
A period of time in Santa Monica, Malibu and Venice Beach in California soon followed, with stints spent singing at nearby clubs helping Brennan to hone her stagecraft. It was in the US that Brennan also began to delve into aspects of her past.
"That was when I started delving into the 'Black and Irish' thing. My past was gradually coming back to me, and I began to look at parts of my life - where I was, how I'd got to where I was, and what I was doing with it. Really, I was running away from a lot of things in my life and not really understanding why, and America was a good place to get into all of that. I definitely felt Irish, though. I mean, I grew up there and it was my environment for quite a while."
FOLLOWING TWO YEARS living on the American west coast, Brennan went back to London, met her partner and "took time out to be a mum." It was when she started writing music for children that she gradually came up with the idea for Small Mercies, her recently released debut album. It's a record of quiet, almost eerie pop-rock intensity, of harsh memories of her childhood in institutions, suffused with a level of self-understanding that is rare. If there's a theme to it, it's one of times past recalled with truth, level-headedness and generosity.
"I chose the songs because they were important to me and they told a story," Brennan says. "Also, it's not always easy to have the strength to talk about songs like that. That can take time, and the songs I chose to be on the album I know I can talk about, and not feel disconnected from them or ashamed of them. They're very much mine, they are who I am and they sum me up."
Brennan is aware that some people might be of the opinion that Small Mercies is a very sad record, but explains calmly that the songs contain valid memories of her life and not fabrications to suit the image of the artist as a spurned, ill-treated genius.
"I write about what I know, and the kind of artist I am - honest and true - wouldn't want it any other way. This is it, basically, and these are the songs that come out of me." Has she retained a sense of embitteredness? With all she has been through, it's doubtful that many people would begrudge her some level of hurt. Or was making Small Mercies a cathartic, purging experience?
"There's definitely healing in the songs," she discloses, "but I'm not embittered by anything that happened - not at all." What about the naysayer who might listen to the songs and assume that they were written out of a sense of retribution, however muted that might be?
"Perhaps they might think that," she says, "but I'm not attacking or accusing with the record. If some people think it's a bitter album - and that might well be their perception - then there isn't much I can do about that. I just think it's fantastic that people can listen to it and take lots of different meanings form it. But the record is not malicious - it's actually very honest. Perception is part of the human condition and that's great, too. But the songs aren't anything to do about scoring points against anybody. They just state what is held in my memory."
Small Mercies is released by Redcliff Records and is on sale at www.evonbrennan.com