Award- winning instrumentalist and composer Alannah Thornburgh told David Hennessy about her debut album inspired by tales of Irish myths and folklore.
Award-winning Mayo instrumentalist and composer Alannah Thornburgh has just released her debut solo album, Shapeshifter inspired by Irish tales of myths and folklore.
Alannah will mark the release with an Irish tour and a London show, both taking place in April.
With a focus on traditional Irish harp, Alannah’s music has explored her family heritage, reimagining melodies from the Irish harping and American folk and jazz traditions.
Shapeshifter is a collection of compositions deeply inspired by the rich traditions of fairy folklore and mythology from rural Ireland, particularly her native Co. Mayo.
The project began when Alannah was commissioned to compose a piece for the Linenhall Arts Centre’s New Music in Mayo series, curated by traditional musician Emer Mayock.
Alannah was always fascinated by the fairy fort behind her grandfather’s house.
This sparked a journey of exploration into the world of fairy lore, which would culminate in the album, Shapeshifter.
With the support of the Arts Council’s Next Generation Award, Alannah conducted interviews with nearly 50 historians, storytellers and locals, collecting stories and experiences that inform her music.
Alannah says creating the album taught her the importance of respecting the fairy folk, not fearing them.”
Alannah was nominated for two awards at last week’s 2025 RTÉ Folk Awards – Best Folk Instrumentalist which she won and Best Original Folk Track for her composition on the shapeshifting quality of the hare, Chasing the Hare.
Hot Press gave the album 9/10 and said: “(Alannah) has created an extraordinary debut in Shapeshifter.…. for fans of Irish myth and folklore, the record offers an outstanding example of how to blend trad with contemporary sensibilities.”
The album features contributions from Laura Quirke (Lemoncello), Joshua Burnside, Lorcan Byrne (Basciville) and Aoife Kelly (Jiggy/ Biird).
Alannah is also a founding member of Alfi, a trio who combine traditional Irish and Appalachian music and song and has performed, recorded and collaborated with many artists in the folk and traditional music scene including Anna Mieke, Brían Mac Gloinn (Ye Vagabonds), Lemoncello, Loah, Niamh Bury, Colm Mac Con Iomaire, Brigid Mae Power, Jiggy, David Keenan, Tristan Scroggins, Paddy McKeown, Conor Caldwell, Gareth Quinn Redmond and Varo.
The Irish World chatted to Alannah ahead of the RTÉ Folk Awards.
What moved you to create the album?
“In 2021 I was commissioned to write a piece of music for this series called New Music of Mayo.
“It had to be a piece of music about Mayo.
“It was an online series because we were still kind of in COVID times, I suppose.
“I was always fascinated by this fairy fort that was behind my granddad’s house.
“We lived beside him in a small village outside of Swinford in Mayo.
“I just thought there was a bit more to it so I asked him about it, was there any stories to do with it.
“And he told me the story of ‘Mick na mBréag’ which means Mick the Liar and that’s one of the tracks off the album.
“It’s just a story about this man who, in our village, 150 years ago got on the wrong side of the fairy folk.
“Basically he noticed his sheep were going missing and after closer inspection, he realised that they had been wandering into the fairy fort, falling in and they weren’t able to get back out.
“So he rescued them and decided to take matters into his own hands.
“He pushed a big stone in front of the fairy fort, but you’re not supposed to disturb or touch the fairy fort.
“It’d be, ‘Leave them to their own devices’.
“Anyway, the next day he woke up and he was paralysed but he was known as Mick the Liar so it’s hard to know what was really going on there.
“I was just fascinated by that story.
“Obviously it’s tragic but the connection to my home place was cool, so I wrote that tune.
“And then I just wanted to know more.
“I got some funding from the Arts Council Next Generation award, then this larger scale project began.
“I interviewed- Casual conversations really as opposed to interviews, I suppose- close to 50 people, mainly from Mayo where I’m from and they were just historians, storytellers, old primary school teachers, local characters.
“I interviewed them on their experience of fairy folklore and mythology and then kind of whittled it down.
“I couldn’t have 50 tunes, obviously, for the album and picked my favourite ones and composed a piece of music in response and that’s the album.”
Tell me about the interviews you did, they must have been fascinating. Is there anything that stands out of all the things you were told?
“There’s so many but one in particular is this myth.
“It’s a common Celtic myth that hares are shape shifters so they take on the form of a woman, a young woman typically dressed in white.
“It’s a deterrent to stop hunters from hunting hares because if you hurt or kill a hare, upon closer inspection, you realise that it’s a woman that you’re killing.
“There were loads of myths and stories I heard about that and how a lot of people fear hares but they’re not supposed to be feared, they’re signs of good fortune and actually, I saw a hare this morning which was lovely.
“It’s a week since the album was released so I think it was a nice sign.
“They’re very magical creatures.
“You would think they weren’t even real.”
That also informs your tune Chasing the Hare…
“That one is kind of a sister track to Hare Song. Hare Song comes first and that was a collaboration with singer songwriter Laura Quirke from the duo, Lemoncello.
“They share the same theme but Laura just kind of took her own stance on it in the lyrics, very interesting.”
There is a common theme in these myths and fables, isn’t there? It seems to be: Respect the land, respect your fellow creatures and. And if you don’t, you could be taught a lesson as well…
“100%, yeah.
“And all of these myths and stories share the common theme of the preservation of the land and environment.
“A few years ago there was talk of cutting down a fairy fort to make a motorway.
“Eddie Lenihan, he’s an amazing seanchaí over here, really advocated, ‘We can’t do this. We can’t disturb..’,
“It (the motorway) didn’t happen in the end, which is great.
“Even the story of the shapeshifting hares, whether you believe it or not, you’re not supposed to harm them.
“It’s kind of a cautionary tale to not do that.”
It is that song that is nominated for an award at this week’s RTE Folk Awards, you are up for two awards..
“It’s really exciting.
“Chasing the Hare was nominated for Best Original Folk Track.
“It’s funny because two of the contributors on the album are nominated in the same category for separate songs.
“Laura Quirke is nominated with her band Lemoncello and then Joshua Burnside, who did some backing vocals, he’s nominated as well in the same category.
“I was also nominated for Best Folk Instrumentalist which is nice.”
Did you always know it was music for you?
“My family, we’re all musicians so it was always going to be my path.
“My dad plays the fiddle and saxophone.
“He actually plays on the album as well.
“And my mother used to play the harp so there was always a harp in the house.
“I started off on the tin whistle, which is common enough in Ireland, when I was five and then the fiddle, then the piano, and then finally the harp at age 11.
“And that was just it for me.
“I absolutely was so drawn to the harp, and still at it now, and at the other instruments as well. I still play them but predominantly (the harp).
“My three siblings play music as well.
“My dad is American so we would have spent summers over there in America playing sessions and gigs and just traveling around over there and over here so it was very exciting.”
Let’s go back to the to the record and what inspired it.
What else did you hear from these interviews that you had to put into music?
“One of the tracks is Oíche na Gaoithe Móire which means the night of the big wind.
“It was basically a big storm that took place in Ireland in the 1800s and caused huge destruction, especially in Mayo.
“A lot of people blamed the fairies for it, there was a lot of superstitious back people back then, and still.
“So that track is the longest one on the album. It’s not even that long, it’s about five minutes and I was trying to emulate a storm in that track so you have the start which is like the calm before the storm and then the actual storm itself and then the end is supposed to be like the fairies’ involvement.
“And apparently, on that day, all the fairies left Ireland but I don’t think that’s true.”
They’re still there..
“I’d like to think so, it’s nice to believe in in other things other than ourselves, you know?”
Do you really believe in these things? You certainly can’t be dismissive of it, can you?
“No, not at all.
“There’s a WB Yeats quote that I quote in the album.
“I’m probably gonna butcher it now but it sums up my feelings on it.
“It’s, ‘Let us go forth, the teller of tales, and seize whatever prey the heart long for, and have no fear. Everything exists, everything is true, and the earth is only a little dust under our feet’.
“Basically everything is true, everything is real and I quoted that in the album sleeve notes. I think that’s just the case.”
Away with the Fairies is based on the myth or the tale of Fód Fáin.
“It translates as stray sod.
“It’s basically like a patch of enchanted woodland or bog land that if you step on it, you become really confused or you forget where you are and the only way to solve it is to turn your coat inside out.
“It was said to be a curse cast by the fairies to ward passers by or strangers from their land but then reading online on ducas.ie a lot of people would say, ‘Oh, it only ever seemed to happen to people who were drinking poitín for some reason’, so there’s that as well.
“But I spoke to a lot of people who had experienced that kind of feeling in woodlands, just this feeling of complete disillusionment and just get feeling of getting lost and not being able to find their way back out again so a lot of people had experienced that and then heard whisperings as well.
“It was really interesting.
“I don’t know but at least you know if you get lost in the woods now, just turn your coat inside out and it will be fine.”
Did you find a great respect for the stories and myths in those you spoke to? Did they all buy into the mythology to some degree?
“Yeah, it’s a bit of a bit of a mixed bag.
“Most people had great belief and were really enthusiastic about telling the stories.
“A lot of people, who I thought would be really useful in my research, didn’t want to speak about the fairies at all.
“There’s this kind of a superstition there so that kind of slowed down the process in my research.
“Like my grandad. Actually he was kind of dismissive.
“And then other people were just like, ‘Oh, it’s just an old piseog, a joke. It’s just an old tale’.
“He actually passed away a few months ago which is sad.
“He never got to see the release of it.
“But he was a bit dismissive of it but I think at the same time, still believed too.
“He wouldn’t have ever touched the fairy fort behind his house so I think there’s definitely a fear there as well of the fairies and even though people might be like, ‘Oh, they’re not real’, they still wouldn’t disrupt their forts or their land or whatever. It’s interesting.”
Tell us another story from your research into myths, folklore etc..
“The title track Shapeshifter is inspired by a black fairy dog.
“Basically a fairy that can shapeshift, take on the form of this huge, monstrous dog.
“And I got this story from my old primary school teacher who I adored.
“It was a story from maybe 50, 60, 70 years ago in her village, a man was walking home. They used to play card games a lot in each other’s houses and probably drink poitín and all of that.
“He was walking home alone and he got a shiver down his back and then he noticed that this huge, black monstrous dog was following him and so he started to speed up. He grabbed onto his rosary beads for courage and the dog kept up its pace.
“And then he remembered that these shapeshifters don’t like water for some reason- the purity of water or something like that- And so he decided to run by this stream and then all of a sudden, the dog had disappeared.
“He just had this story to tell for years after.
“And Eddie Lenihan speaks about the black fairy dog as well.
“I just thought that was pretty cool and that’s where I got the title of the album as well.
“The title changed a good bit.
“It was originally Away with the Fairies and then it was going to be Other Worlds and then I settled on Shapeshifter which I’m really happy I did in the end.”
The world of myth and folklore is so vast. You said you did 50 interviews on this. I’m sure you have a lot more that you could dive into for another album, right?
“Yeah, I could definitely do another album out of what I’ve gathered already.
“It’s exciting to think actually that it’s all there.
“That’s a good idea.
“I actually hadn’t thought of doing that but thanks.”
The album has some esteemed guests as you mentioned before..
“I know.
“And they’re all friends of mine as well which is really nice, just different friends, musicians, artists that I’ve gathered through the years and it was just great having them.
“My dad, Rob, played saxophone on two tracks, and Lorcan (Byrne)’s a good friend of mine.
“He played percussion on three.
“Another really good friend of mine, Conor Cunningham, plays clarinet, I think he adds so much to it.
“Laura obviously wrote the lyrics and sang on Hare Song and then Joshua Burnside added some backing vocals which was lovely.
“Steven Doherty, he’s a great traditional musician from Foxford.
“He recorded the album in his studio and added some bodhrán and then Aoife Kelly: She’s an amazing fiddle player with the band Jiggy-“
Not just Jiggy but also Biird (Lisa Canny’s all female collective), I remember her playing a double shift on the Trafalgar Square St Patrick’s stage last year..
“She’s such a character. I love her.
“She added some violin.
“It was kind of a more classical sound to Shapeshifter.”
Being from Mayo, are you a big GAA fan?
“I am a big GAA fan.
“I took a bit of a break from it over the last few years just because watching matches, whether we were doing well or not, I get very stressed.
“It was hard but I’m always behind Mayo and hopefully this year, we’ll see.”
Speaking about myths, folklore etc, I have an interesting final question for a Mayo person.
Do you think there is anything in that Mayo ‘Curse of ‘51’ that has affected the Mayo team?
“In the context of all these myths and everything, it probably is true at this stage.
“There’s something going on there, I think.”
Shapeshifter is out now.
Alannah tours Ireland and plays London’s Theatreship on 26 April.
For more information, click here.
