Fiddle player Gráinne Brady’s upcoming debut album, The Road Across the Hills, is the perfect blend of old and new. It features tunes composed by Gráinne in 2017 and 2018, with extracts from poems written by late Donegal poet Patrick MacGill read over them.

Gráinne became acquainted with Patrick’s work in her teenage years and it clearly had a lasting impression, as this was ultimately the inspiration for The Road Across the Hills, which in essence acts as a soundtrack to Patrick’s 1914 novel Children of the Dead End.

“I wanted to do some solo music for a while and I was trying to think of some concept to base my album on, it is easier to be inspired and work around something that way,” explains Gráinne. “That book came into my head and I hadn’t read it in a long time, so I re-read it and some ideas came to me. I started writing tunes and I was feeling quite inspired.”

Gráinne Brady.

Children of the Dead End is based on personal memories of Patrick’s life in Scotland and Ireland during the early 1900s. It tells the story of Dermot Flynn, a farmhand in Donegal and Tyrone who moves to Scotland picking potatoes and working as a navvy.

Gráinne, originally from a dairy farm in south Cavan, can, in a way, relate to Patrick’s story. She moved to Glasgow seven years ago to complete a master’s degree in maths, which she is yet to use and now works full time as a musician based in Scotland.

“I am in a more privileged position. He was sending money home to his parents, whereas my parents are there to help out if ever I am in trouble and they are very supportive,” says Gráinne.

“It was a very different time, they just worked to send money home. Ireland as a country was very poor at the time, there were children nearly working as labourers.

“I always find it incredible how different it was, but how I relate to it is through the actual music itself, it is a reflection of having learned so much since I came here.

“The music is more of a reflection of my journey. There are some Irish sounding tunes near the start and as you move on in the album there is more of a Scottish contemporary vibe.”

The Road Across the Hills will be released on 22 February 2019, pre-orders are available from 24 November. For more information see www.grainnebradyfiddle.com.

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