Claddagh Records poised to become ‘living, breathing’ record label again

Claddagh Records, the Irish music label revived through a licensing deal with Universal Music, intends to sign two new artists before the end of 2022 and release albums by them next year as part of a bid to bring its catalogue of music and poetry to a global audience.

Nick Younger, chief operating officer of Universal Music Ireland, said the company would make Claddagh’s “treasure trove” of recordings available to listeners who never previously had access to them, while also signing the new artists who will make it “a living, breathing record label”.

The company, first founded 1959 by friends Garech Browne and Ivor Browne, has begun reissuing music and spoken word recordings through the Universal deal agreed in 2020 – a partnership Mr Younger described as the biggest music company in the world signing up with one of the smallest.

Claddagh topped the official Irish compilation charts for three weeks this autumn with the vinyl and CD release of Patrick Kavanagh – Almost Everything, temporarily knocking the cast recording for the musical film The Greatest Showman down to number two.

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The double album, which Mr Younger said had “taken off like a rocket”, features the original 1964 recording of the poet reading his most celebrated poems alongside new readings by Bono, Jessie Buckley, Liam Neeson, Rachael Blackmore, President Michael D Higgins and other well-known musicians and actors, with music recorded by Cormac Butler.

Rebel Irishwomen

It is hoping for further success with its next reissue, Rebel Irishwomen, available from December 2nd. It features the recollections of three women who were associated with the 1916 Rising – Helena Molony, Maud Gonne MacBride and Kathleen Behan – as well as new interpretations by folk artist Niamh Bury and female vocal group Landless of the music and songs heard in the original 1966 record.

The release comes just ahead of the 100th anniversary of the Irish Free State on December 6th.

Claddagh Records is chaired and majority owned by James Morrissey, the PR man and former journalist, who had been working with his friend Garech Browne on a book project when Mr Browne died in 2018. Mr Browne’s trustees then asked Mr Morrissey to help revive the label, prompting him to pursue a deal with Universal, the biggest of the “big three” record labels.

Numerous boxes

With the expert knowledge of former Claddagh company secretary Jane Bolton, work began to sort through numerous boxes of recorded material as part of “a long process of identifying what was actually in the catalogue and what was simply resting there for a period of time”, Mr Younger said.

“When we set out on this partnership we knew that Claddagh Records was special but didn’t understand just how special. We knew there was cultural significance but not just how deep it ran. And we knew that the music, the art, the poetry would be appreciated globally. When we started, fewer than 10 albums were available worldwide, now 80 albums are live.”

Claddagh’s catalogue includes several albums by traditional Irish music ambassadors the Chieftains as well as work by the influential Seán Ó Riada, who composed the score for Mise Éire, a 1959 documentary on the struggle for Irish independence.

It also includes recordings of uilleann pipers Liam O’Flynn and Séamus Ennis, fiddler Tommy Potts and singer Dolly McMahon, as well as the voices of poets Seamus Heaney, Thomas Kinsella and John Montague, among others.

The reissues through Universal have reinvigorated Claddagh after a difficult pandemic for the company that saw it close its shop in Dublin’s Temple Bar.