Sean Tyrrell

Born in Galway, Ireland, Sean Tyrrell performs on vocals as well as guitar, mandocello and banjo. He first attracted attention across Ireland through his musical setting of Brian Merriman’s eighteenth-century satire on sexuality, The Midnight Court. That project highlighted both his longstanding interest in poetry and his knack for transforming literary works into lively musical settings. For his own repertoire he turned to overlooked writers and poets such as Johnny Mulhern, David Callinan, John Boyle O’Reilly and Louis MacNiece. The debut album further incorporated a composition by the nineteenth-century Presbyterian John Frazier. These pieces had been assembled across two decades and staged only sporadically, bringing fresh life to items like Mulhern’s ‘Demolition Man’ and Callinan’s ‘House Of Delight’. The album took its title from a line in Boyle O’Reilly’s poem ‘Trilogy’. It also contained ‘Blue Green Bangle’, later recorded by Sean Keane on All Heart No Roses. Much of the collection’s energy came from the contributions of seasoned players including Davey Spillane, Mairtin O’Connor and Greg Boland.