A review of Trá Pháidín’s album launch for Cloch ‘s Claí at Amharclann Chois Fharraige on Saturday 26 September. Published in The Journal of Music in Ireland on 29 September 2026.
The last time I saw Trá Pháidín, they were wearing bowler hats and Orange Order sashes in Stiúideo Cuan in An Spidéal around the 12th of July last year. This time, in Amharclann Chois Fharraige in Indreabhán (26 September), launching their new album Cloch ‘s Claí, they were wearing flat, rag-like masks as if from a dystopian Halloween of Famine times, the kind that would haunt you.
On the surface, the six-piece Trá Pháidín play a mix of dark folk, post-rock and electronica, combining Irish-style melodies on guitar, flute, clarinet, bass and two drum kits with visuals and, at this performance, masked figures descending on the audience. But there is something more: a literary element. Their new album contains a series of humorous but unmistakably sharp commentaries on the Gaeltacht, Irish-language hypocrisy, unaffordable housing, and the vapidity of RTÉ and TG4.
The gig opened – as the album does – to Peadar-Tom Mercier’s ghostly guitar and a swipe at tech nomads who rent in the Gaeltacht. We hear a Dublin voice on the phone saying how great it is ‘to get out of the city for the week’ and that there is ‘not many living around here’ – ‘it’s actually perfect!’
A jig melody on guitar begins in ‘An Béal Bocht’ and is joined by flute (Conal Ó hAinmhuighe) and clarinet (Ultan Ó Labhradha). The whispered verses turn to disdain for the glut of Airbnbs and the ‘Dubs, na Tans ‘s na Yanks’ with their holiday homes that are empty for most of the year, as well as the imposition of English on the area with their ‘goodbye agus thanks’. The music transitions to syncopations and counter-melodies before arriving at ‘Garbhóg’, a chromatic trumpet melody and taunting ‘la-la-las’ sung by the band. The lighter ‘Fidín’ follows with a twisting march, again shared by flute and clarinet.
Photo: Sara LeslieThe album includes three satirical ‘Gaeltacht news reports’, which also appeared in the gig, announcing, respectively, that a ‘Peig Sayers Plaza’ is to be built by Supermac’s on the Blaskets; that TG4 has no more ideas except ‘Trad agus Peil’ and is switching to AI; and that Tory Island is to be cleared of people and sold by ‘Integrated Risk Management Services Teoranta’.
But perhaps the most acidic attack is saved for ‘Seachtain na Gaeilge’. To a deathly strum on guitar, pounding drums and a falling melody on flute, the band orate in Irish – and whisper in English – about the deeper meaning of the week: ‘The commercial potential of the Irish language’; ‘The gradual chill in a room when Irish is heard’; and ‘the illness which inhibits one from finding the time to learn the Irish, but they speak fluent French.’
This is followed by ‘Anglicize Everything’, where Mercier plays his guitar with a bow against gritty electronics and a haunting vocal, and we hear south Dublin voices ordering ‘three Guinness, three Guinness’ while talking about ‘the resurgence in the language’.
At this stage in the concert, three figures appear wearing large papier-mâché masks, representing ‘Ireland’, ‘St Patrick’ and ‘RTÉ’ respectively, and move to the front of the stage. ‘Ireland’ and ‘St Patrick’ violently attack ‘RTÉ’ with the pole of a tricolour, and then ‘RTÉ’ attacks ‘Ireland’, and finally the three move through the audience speaking English to everyone (and handing me the tricolour to wave).
All of this evoked a laugh from the audience, and drew on the tradition of comic drámaí and agallaimh bheirte in Conamara, but there is a sober side to what Trá Pháidín are saying. The primary author of the texts is Mercier himself, who grew up in An Cheathrú Rua and is expressing the exasperation of a community, and a generation, that has seen the emptying out of social life around them. While Trá Pháidín’s last album was inspired by the 424 bus route along south Conamara, Cloch ‘s Claí takes its concept from the symbolic dry-stone walls that speak to us from the past.
It was difficult for the audience to make out all of the words at the launch gig, but what makes Cloch ‘s Claí work as an album, apart from the witty texts, is the weaving of melodies between the band (with Micheál Fitzgerald on bass); the sense of flow between up-tempo tracks and more meditative electronic treatments; and the two drummers (Pól Ó Lionáird and Ruairí De Búrca) coordinating skilfully to expand the sound.
Trá Pháidín are part of a micro-avant-garde movement that has sprung up in Conamara in recent years. The concert was promoted by the collective Gliogar, which has also hosted concerts by Olan Monk and Róis and the drama Ar an Dé Deiridh.
Cultural eruptions like Trá Pháidín and Gliogar are telling us something, but who is listening? The media talk about ‘Gaelmaxxing’, but few want to talk about the contradictions that the Gaeltacht lives with and which are slowly, silently chipping away at it. Make Conamara weird again.
Cloch ‘s Claí by Trá Pháidín is released on the World of Echo label. Visit https://trawfawdeen.bandcamp.com.
Trá Pháidín’s upcoming concert dates include LSAD, Limerick (2 October); An Taibhdhearc, Galway (3 October); Oileán Chléire, Cork (31 October); Teaċ Daṁsa, Ghlaise Beag, Corca Dhuibhne (7 November); Walthamstow Trades Hall, London (21 November); The Button Factory, Dublin (6 December); and Boole Library, Cork (20 December).
