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Oct 25, 2024, 08:00 PMGet Tickets
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Contact Presenter
Paddy Dennehy
Upstairs At Dolans - Limerick, V94 VH4X, Ireland
As a child Paddy would rush to get a guitar or play the piano very loudly in the hopes that you
might hear it and request a song before you left. It was often requested of him to play more
quietly or to stop ‘hitting’ the piano. Another frequent suggestion was that screaming the notes
that he found difficult to sing did not make them sound any better. He was not imbued with a
keen sense of subtlety or restraint but he has been working on this over the years.
His first real sense of feeling a connection to music was listening to Mick Flannery
perform ‘Evening Train’ on the ‘Late Late Show’. The very next day he walked into HMV in
Limerick with his walkman and bought that album. He listened to it all the way home and for
weeks afterwards again and again. From here there is a clear trajectory of influences - Mick
Flannery led him to Tom Waits. Tom Waits led Paddy to Randy Newman who would lead on to
Nick Cave. Other influences would surface in later years but Flannery, Waits, Newman and
Cave have formed the bedrock of Paddy’s music.
Paddy’s first album ‘Little Light’ was released in June of 2020 to both critical acclaim and
a well documented pandemic. He received glowing reviews from Hotpress magazine in Ireland,
Folk Radio UK, Rolling Stone France to name a few . The songs on that album have allowed
Paddy being invited to share a stage with the likes of Mick Flannery, Glen Hansard, Imelda May,
Lisa Hannigan , Gemma Hayes and Paul Noonan.
‘Love and Be Brave’ is the title of his second album released in May 2023. When he
started writing this album Paddy lived alone on his father’s small farm in County Limerick. It was
a long way from anywhere and afforded him plenty of time to think, write and play with
everything on full volume. It was both cathartic and challenging..
‘Love and Be Brave’ - That’s the point of the album. Love bravely, never passively and
don’t take love as a given thing in this world. It must be earned and protected fiercely