Gráinne Brady: BEYOND: The Story of an Irish Immigrant

Описание: This project, called BEYOND: The Story of an Irish Immigrant, will culminate in the release of my debut album ‘The Road Across the Hills’ in February 2019, also tours of the album, and future recordings and performances relating to these themes.

The idea for this project came about when I was rereading an old book I read years ago as a teenager called ‘Children of the Dead End’. This book was written in the early 20th century by a Donegal writer called Patrick MacGill who emigrated to Scotland to find work. Although he was barely educated, he began to read and write poetry while working on the railways in Glasgow as a Navvy up in Kinlochleven. His writings revealed the brutal life of a labourer and showed his preoccupation with the poor, and people like him who toiled in the muck to build civilisation but lived on the outside of society.

His first book of poetry was self-published, and he sold it door to door in Greenock. When he was about 20 years old he got a job as a journalist with the Daily Express in London, after submitting several articles about the life of a navvy in the Scottish mountains. After a short-lived stint at journalism, remarkably he was then taken into Windsor Castle as a resident where he was able to pursue his writing.

Children of the Dead End was written around 1913 and although it’s written as fiction, it is an autobiographical novel. It starts in Donegal where it talks about his childhood and the old rural traditions, along with the grip that the catholic church and the landlords had on the people at that time. He then emigrates to Scotland with a group from Donegal to pick potatoes around Renfrewshire and Ayrshire. After this he works on the railways and as a navvy up in the mountains. The book draws you in from start to finish and is full of great characters that will have you hooked.

The music for this album will act as a soundtrack to Children of the Dead End. I wrote the music itself based on some pivotal points that happen in the book and I hope that the music will take the listener on the same journey as MacGill and so many other immigrants.