To have loved and lost: New documentary explores Irish love lives through song

Irish ‘hang-ups’ about drink, sex, and unrequited love are explored in a TV series starting this week.

“GK Chesterton said once of the Irish that all their wars are merry and all their songs are sad,” says series director Paddy Hayes, who has put together six programmes scrutinising the pet obsessions of the Irish through their songs.

“We never sing about love that’s reciprocated, for example — it’s always about the love that’s unobtainable or unrequited.

“We’re a bit depressed that way, we tend to focus on the negative.”

Although some 80% of Irish songs are about love, Hayes claims, many are about the loss of it, so the series examines why the repressed Irish can’t be vocal about romance until it slips from their grasp.

The series features singers of all traditions, from Cork troubadours John Spillane and Ger Wolfe to Sinéad O’Connor, the monks of Glenstal Abbey, and Eleanor McEvoy.

For the series, Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, singer and fiddler with Altan, embarks on a musical tour of Ireland, jamming and chatting with the singers.

In one episode, Mary Coughlan and Barry Gleeson, brother of actor Brendan, examine the themes of liquor and lust in Irish songs, while in another, Sinéad O’Connor investigates the spirituality and transformative power of music.

“There’s a repression in our sexuality and our psyche that we sometimes overcome in song,” says Hayes, who explains that the question of whether the nation’s complicated relationship with the demon drink has been a help or a hindrance to songwriters through the ages is a major topic.

The first programme focuses on the Irish love of home. Home and the Homeland features Ger Wolfe and John Spillane who join Mary Black and Luka Bloom in the Cork City’s landmark Lobby Bar.

“Ger and John sing in their own accents, about locality and home — John Spillane talks about how when we sing about the local there is a global message in it,” explains Hayes.

* Guth na nGael: A Thematic Exploration of Irish Song, is on RTÉ1 this Friday at 7.30pm.