I’m trying to write a song right now. With this one, I had a stray idea of how a sound would go up in crescendo, building momentum.
I didn’t really have a purpose for the sound other than musical. I was recording with Myles O’Reilly, and I sang a phonetic vocal on it, kind of gobbledygook, but it sounded good.
Myles was saying, “We have to keep going with this,” but I’m struggling to turn the gobbledygook into something meaningful. So it stands out, so I can enjoy singing it in the future. You find out as soon as you go to a gig, whether a song carries you. Whether it leaks energy or brings energy. Some songs don’t last. Myles is someone who brings out the vibrant stuff.
Sometimes a song comes as a lyric, sometimes you get something walking down the road, or sometimes it comes out as a very distinct, emotional thing when you want to solve a puzzle or change your way of looking at something.
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I was getting so upset with the abuse the Israeli army is doing to the Palestinian population that it ripped me to the core every day emotionally. And I thought, I have to write; I have to find some pattern in my mind. I thought, “Can I empathise with the Israeli soldiers?”
What I came to was: “There’s no such thing as the enemy, it’s just people like you and me.”
I’d played it a million times when Myles said, “Write it as Gaeilge, Rónán”.
It was a real challenge; I’d formed the pathways in English, and I had to forget all those words. I struggled with it for a long time, but it turned into:
“Níor fíor duit, gur do namhaid iad son
daoine daonna mar b’ionann linn fhéin
Mise thusa, tusa mise
Níor fíor duit, gur do namhaid iad son
Bréag é sin a deireann tu leat fhéin
Mise thusa, tusa mise”
Since I started writing songs as a teenager, I’ve had a way of making the words not sit on the page, so it’s not just poetry.
I grew up speaking Gaeilge, living in Sandymount in Dublin. It felt like we were growing up in enemy territory, where sometimes everyone was against us. You didn’t feel it all the time – we were just kids running around in a gang, playing football or cycling our bikes. But I didn’t like the feeling I had when I was young. That we were kind of on the sly like: “Shut the door quick, they’re gone, Is féidir linn Gaeilge a labhairt! Cad é an scéal? I dunno! It’s weird out there!”
I remember my dad and all his friends marching for Cearta Gaeilge. At the time, I thought, “This is weird, I only know Gaeilge”. The trend was to shut Gaeilge, nationalism and patriotism down.
I’m still learning English now. I’m proud of the English I have, but I’ve deliberately couched it in Dublin vernacular.
I went to Coláiste Eoin for secondary school. It was a healthy place to be, where you were allowed to express yourself. The múinteoirí and the bráithre were interested in you, and there was a flamboyance to the place.
I played sports and tried to learn the tin whistle, but I was kicked out of the class after two minutes. I think I whacked another kid on the head with the yoke. I tried the guitar too, and then I picked up a bodhrán Mama had got for my brother Colm. When you’re young, it is all about skill. As you grow, it’s not just skills, the project is not to be selfish. I wanted to be good enough to play with the people I wanted to play with.
I was 16 or so when my brother Rossa started a banna ceoil, and he asked me to join. We got off some classes, and it gave us an excuse to be part of the outside world. There was a feeling in Coláiste Eoin, “Má tá sé Gaelach bhí cead”, even if you’re doing punk rock.
We were playing our musical heroes at the time, and we were all into different kinds of music. Really quickly we had a band that actually rocked. We started busking in town, took some abuse, gave some abuse and made a few bob. We got a gig in Germany in 1988, and that was us. Kíla were on the road.
I never admire guitar players who collect 30 guitars. I try to have as few bodhráns as possible. I give them away or sell them sometimes. I used to be attached to things, but being attached to things outside of yourself doesn’t last.
How many do I have now? Let’s see ... aon, dó, trí, ceathair, cúig, sé, seacht, ocht, naoi, deich, aon déag, dó déag, trí déag. That’s me embarrassing myself. Half of them are cranky or broken.
The one I use at the minute, it’s really fancy. I got it off a friend years ago. It was in bad shape, you could hear it all the time. I was so afraid of it. It was too hot, too look-at-me. That’s the opposite of what I play music for.
I cut bits out of it and put a little wool in it to calm down the resonance, and I stuck some stickers on it. That is why I took it: it will remind me not to be arrogant. That’s the journey with this bodhrán.
In conversation with Rosanna Cooney. This interview is part of a series about well-known people’s lives and relationship with Ireland. Kíla will be joined by special guests at the National Stadium in Dublin on January 23rd for Féile Kíla, tickets €30, kila.ie.
