Imelda May: ‘We have to focus on being human and being kind’

Bringing women’s stories to light, racism and leaving the world a better place – Imelda May looks at the big picture with Aoife Barry

Sat, 06 Jul, 2024 - 02:00

Aoife Barry

“I have produced all of my albums, I’ve co-produced, I write on the albums – I’m in the studio rolling up my sleeves and I listen to every take. I’m mixing, I’m editing… and never get asked about it.”

Imelda May is sitting in a Dublin cafe, eating porridge and reflecting on what it’s like to be a female musician and producer.

Warm and open, she’s spent almost the last hour talking with the Irish Examiner about her role as matriarch Kathleen Behan in the stage show Mother of All the Behans (of which more in a moment) and discussion has turned to the challenges May has faced over the years.

It’s striking to hear that, despite becoming one of Ireland’s favourite musicians after blasting onto the scene with her rockabilly sound in the late Noughties, May still finds some of her work isn’t taken seriously.

But her story shows what she’s trying to achieve through her role in Mother of All the Behans, as well as the TV documentary work she’s been doing lately – bringing Irish women’s stories to light.

A singer and musician for most of her life, May was brought up alongside four siblings by parents Tony and Madge Clabby in Dublin’s Liberties (sadly, her mother died in 2021 and her father earlier this year).

Taking on the role of Kathleen makes sense: the two women have Dublin carved on their bones.Kathleen was also fond of a sing-song. “She released her first album in her 80s – don’t we love that?” says May.

The show, which ran for the first time last summer and reaches The Everyman on July 30, tells Behan’s life story in words and song.

Adapted and directed by Peter Sheridan with additional material by Rosaleen Linehan, it’s based on Brian Behan’s book, which itself is based on interviews with his mother. On stage, May tells these stories in Kathleen’s words, accompanied by a pianist.

“It was daunting at the beginning,” she says of the first run. “When I really got stuck in, I thought, ‘How am I going to do this?’”

She found learning the lines difficult at first. She says: “I was like a mad woman walking around, walking my dog [and] talking out loud.”

For the singer, sharing Kathleen’s story is a way of putting a greater focus on women’s histories.

While Kathleen was well-known during her time, not least for being the mother of writer Brendan Behan, other important women of her generation are long forgotten.

“I think it’s imperative that we know these things and what they went through,” says May.

She’s eager for people to connect with Kathleen, who was a staunch Republican, an activist, and a singer. She was also a survivor.

“When her husband died [from the Spanish flu], she was left with a toddler and pregnant with the next one… and then her next husband was locked up for his freedom fighting and she was left with all the kids and not a penny in the tenement houses,” says May.

She adds: “Brendan wouldn’t have been Brendan without her.”

May also presented a documentary this year called Lily & Lolly: The Forgotten Yeats Sisters, about WB Yeats’s siblings.

“The women, often they were busy – they were busy raising children, they were busy doing things,” says May of previous generations. “They were still contributing to our culture and our art but they were just not getting the credit for doing so.”

Without women’s voices being represented in society, “you don’t get a balanced view of life”, says May. But, she says, if you go into libraries, art galleries, or even look at your own record shelves, you’re likely to find mostly men represented.

“It’s totally unbalanced. So I’m just going to bring back the balance. I totally love what men have to say. But we’ve heard a lot about them and from them, and I want to shine a light on what the women did, especially those who are gone, so that they’re not forgotten.”

While the music industry is “getting there, but slowly” with gender equality, there is also “a lot of smoke and mirrors”, says the tenacious May.

When she co-produces an album with a man, invariably people will credit him for the production work. It’s hard to speak up, she says. Eventually you ”just give up”, rather than look like you’re “pleading” for acknowledgement.

“But this is what makes me think of women who have passed. That they must have had the exact same, that they were saying, ‘We did this too,’ and weren’t listened to, and they’re dead and gone... So will their work never be acknowledged? Will we never know? Was it for nothing?”, says May.

May’s own career trajectory is an inspiring one. Now 49, she’s lately added film and stage acting to her CV. She says that art guides her.

“I like to think I do everything for the right reasons,” she says, laughing, as she adds: “I don’t sit down with a plan. I don’t have a five-year plan, a one-year plan. Maybe I should get one.”

Imelda May pictured in Cork, June 2024. Picture: Michael O'Sullivan

In 2021, her poetry collection ‘A Lick and A Promise’ was published by the prestigious Faber.

One of her poems, ‘You Don’t Get to be Racist and Irish’, went viral after she posted it on YouTube in 2020. May plays close attention to the current flashpoints around immigration, such as people setting fire to mooted accommodation centres.

When it comes to fighting back against racism, she says: “You have to understand that you can’t just tell somebody, ‘Don’t be racist.’ That doesn’t work.”

For her, it’s about looking at where the unrest is, and why it’s aimed at certain people. “I think all these issues need to be addressed by those we vote in, and looked at, and people need to be listened to, because most of it is based on fear,” she says.

“Fear of what will I do, fear of how am I going to feed my family? Fear of what if I lose my job? But it comes out in hateful ways.”

She adds of racism in Ireland: “I think it’s abhorrent what’s happening, but I think also… it needs to be looked at deeper as to why there’s so much unrest, and what can be done about it. Because I think certainly within racism… a lot of the far right, their fears have been manipulated by others. I think that they’re targeting the wrong people and the hate is coming out [against] the wrong people. They’re hating people they should actually understand more and to be able to relate between their history and our history. They should be looking at those who are in charge and making the decisions. That’s where to put your focus on, and not to hate them – to protest.

“We’re all in this world together. And we just have to get on with it. And the world is changing. And will continue to change. And it’s gonna get hard. And I think it’s gonna get harder and we have to try and just focus on being human and being kind. We have to leave this world at the end of the day and you want to leave it a better place than you came into it. Love is the only way.”

Next up for May is shooting more films, which she loves “because I’ve spent so much of my career trying to be my authentic self”. She finds joy in channelling a character. Going from music to acting hasn’t felt too much of a pivot. “I’m a storyteller, I’m a seanchaí,” she smiles.

“Whatever the medium is, it’s all about connecting with a story – whether it’s mine or someone else’s.”

Members of the Behan family came to see Mother of All the Behans, and gave her a thumbs-up. “I was delighted as I was anxious,” says May, acknowledging the responsibility of playing the role. “I’m not trying to do an impression of her,” she says of Kathleen, adding that she put a lot of her own mother and grandmother into the role.

But backstage every night before the show begins, she turns to the woman herself for guidance. “I say, ‘Kathleen, if you want to say anything now, you’ve an hour-and-a-half. I’m here, use me,’” she smiles. “I feel she’s giving me the thumbs-up. If she could, she’d be with us all during it – she wasn’t one to miss a good opportunity.”