From Newfoundland to Valentia Isle

Canadian singer Amelia Curran hears sounds of home in the Irish accent. She talks to Ed Power

AMELIA CURRAN is Canadian on the outside but feels Irish under the skin. “I’m from Newfoundland so I have Irish blood, I’m sure,” says the cult singer-songwriter. “They say most Newfoundlanders do.”

The connections between Ireland and Newfoundland, which lies off the north east of Canada, go back centuries, she says. At the inaugural Valentia Isle festival in Kerry this weekend, Curran will be on hand for a ceremony to mark the link between the two islands. In a way it is going to feel like coming home.