Newcomer

As a young Gráinne Brady was learning the fiddle from her dad in County Cavan, she was also enraptured by the works of celebrated Donegal writer Patrick MacGill, which vividly depict the lives of the poverty-stricken and down-trodden of Ireland and Scotland in the early 20th century. In 2019, when Brady, by that time a mainstay of the traditional music scene in Glasgow, made her first solo album, The Road Across the Hills, she based it on MacGill's autobiographical novel Children of the Dead End, even including some spoken word passages of MacGill's poetry delivered by Donegal native and fiddler Jack Houston. That successful model is also used for this, her second album, inspired this time by MacGill's novel The Rat-Pit, which tells the sorrowful story of Norah Ryan, a beautiful emigrant vulnerable to poverty and sexual exploitation. Produced by Mike Vass and entirely composed by Brady, most of the lyrics are taken directly from MacGill, a notable exception being the rather lovely ballad ‘By and By’, written and sung to moving effect by Brady herself. Whether or not you're familiar with the source material, it's an impressive and passionate achievement, soon to form the basis for a musical theatre piece.