At a certain point in our discussion about music, I show Imelda May footage of people singing at a party I recently attended. They’re accompanying an older man who is singing about the Napoleonic Wars. She’s moved by it, so much so that she grabs my forearm as she listens. “Beautiful,” she says softly.
The singer, poet and actor has been telling me about the musical culture she grew up with in the Liberties, in Dublin. She is clad all in black, with a leather biker jacket. We’re sitting outside on a sunny day at a hotel in Montenotte, overlooking Cork city. She has, she says, been trying to conjure up the spirit of Irish singing sessions in her gigs.
“I never remember music not being a huge part of my life. Singsongs were natural in our household. My mam was a dressmaker, a seamstress. She had me later in life. I was the surprise baby.
“So my mam was the same age as my friends’ grandmothers, and I got an insight into something from before. She worked in the factories. They weren’t allowed to speak, so they sang all day.”
When one finished singing another would start, and they’d all join in.
