A weather forecast from the past; a mysterious Viking invasion; and a visit to the mythical Isle of
Hy-Brasil — these are just some of the stories brought to life in Irish songwriter Enda Reilly’s
music. With intricate guitar-playing, vocal prowess and a cross-cultural sensibility, Reilly brings
the essence of Ireland to American audiences. His latest album, Hy-Brasil, features
newly-penned folk songs sung in both English and Irish Gaelic.
“There’s a haunting magic at
work here,
” raves Folkwords Magazine, and the artistic director of the Milwaukee Irish Festival
calls Reilly,
“a champion of the Gaelic language.
” From the ephemeral lakes of a Yeats’ poem to
the 16th century ship where Grace O'Malley ruled as the “pirate queen,
” Reilly brings the mythic
down to earth.
When not singing his own songs, Reilly keeps the past moving forward with timeless traditional
ballads.
“The older songs connect you to past generations,
” he says.
“You can feel the continuity
— 100s of years evaporate when you bring your own voice to these time-worn tunes.
” His
original songs are also in conversation with the past.
“Hy-Brasil” is a journey to the mythological
island between Ireland and the US, an island found in old legends but not on a modern map.
“In
a sense my consciousness lies somewhere between these two countries so maybe I’m looking
to find my own Hy-Brasil,
” Reilly muses.
“Whiskey Fire” is a new folk song about the Great Fire
of Dublin on June 18, 1875 where heroic firemen battled bravely while others foolishly drank
alcohol off the street.
Sometimes music skips a generation. Reilly’s parents came from farming families that kept hay
for the cattle and cut turf from the bog to stay warm in the winters. They moved from the west of
Ireland to T allaght, a suburb of Dublin, to raise their family. Reilly attended an Irish language
school where he learned to play tin whistle and sing Gaelic songs in regional dialects from
across the country. He fell particularly hard for the old ballads, writing lyrics out by hand in his
trusty A4 notebook. In the year before his death, Reilly’s father bought him his first guitar. Reilly
took to writing cathartic, philosophical songs to try and make sense of his experience. After
years of penning songs, making records and topping the Irish charts — Reilly is still trying to
make sense of the world by turning story into song.
Not only a songmaker and touring artist, Reilly is also an enthusiastic educator and ambassador
of Irish culture. Now based in Michigan, he has taught workshops at countless libraries across
the Midwest and can often be found telling stories and sharing songs on many an Irish festival’s
Heritage Stage. Reilly loves to provide the cultural context for the music he plays through
spellbinding stories and folkloric history. The director of the Paw Paw Library describes Reilly’s
Songs and Stories of Ireland program as “the perfect combination of music, personal
storytelling, and Irish history,
” and director of the Roseville Library says it “was one of our
best-attended programs in the past year, and — no exaggeration — patrons were raving about
it.
” Reilly also offers an educational concert called To Waters and the Wild that sets W.B. Yeats’
poems to music, and a holiday program called Songs of Irish Christmas.
