Reviews

Siobhan Long - Irish Times: 

Whatever’s in the water west of Kerry, it flows tenaciously through the vein of every local, no matter how far they stray from home. Mossie Scanlon left Dingle for Australia three decades ago and while his exile is audible in his choice of repertoire, there isn’t a trace of it in his crystalline vocals and pristine Corca Dhuibhne Irish. At times the repertoire suffers from an over-abundance of sentiment (Gentle Annie lumbers), but Téanam Ort! is overwhelmingly a collection of magnificent songs filtered through a larynx that’s blissfully free of indulgent ornamentation. Songs of Irish and Australian history sit cosily alongside one another, neither suffocated by passion nor hindered by overtly political motives. A gorgeous gabhall of tunes. ****

 

Muiris Ó Scanláin, is a sean-nós singer and earlier this year he released an album titled Teanam Ort (Come Away) and sub-titled Songs and Music From My Two Lands. What is striking about his voice is its purity and his clear, unadorned style. With every song, it sounds as if he is standing at the foot of Mount Brendan, looking up, acknowledging the memories the mountain embodies.

He sings Roisin Dubh, but with equivalent passion he also sings the great Irish-Australian convict lament, Moreton Bay. “I feel close to those people,” he says. “A lot of them would have been Irish speakers.

During his years in Perth he realised how much he missed his language and culture. He learned that a woman from a neighbouring farm, Eileen Begley Loughnane, had settled Melbourne. They arranged to meet.“I didn’t care what we talked about, so long as we talked in Irish.” Mossie is now a leading figure in the Irish Language Association of Australia.

Shane Howard

I was introduced to Mossie through historian and friend Eamonn Ryan. Eamonn knew Mossie through his involvement with the Irish Language Association. When Mossie wanted to make a recording, Eamonn suggested that we meet. Into my world came Mossie Scanlon with his native Irish Language and history, culture and mythology and, of course the songs. Great wit and native intelligence travel with him. A man who left his native home nearly thirty years ago but still intimately retains the elements of his cultural tradition. When Mossie sings, it is, in many ways, a voice from the past.

Read the full review | top

Gan Teorainn! - No Boundary

CD review - Aidan O'Hara - Irish Music Magazine: 

"People often ask me, particularly in Australia, why I sing with my eyes shut," Mossie Scanlon writes in his CD notes. "I explain to them that I am totally relaxed when I am singing and that I am riding on the crest of the song, you could say, and that I follow it wherever it takes me." Now I ask you, are those not the words of a songsmith, a poet even? Beautifully put. Speaking of shut eyes, it reminds me of Liam Clancy's description of Delia Murphy's unique way of presenting a song which appealed to him very much: "I call it shut-eyed singing," he said. In other words he appreciated her style of singing because it was so relaxed and easy. well, Mossie's the same.