The all female trad group Cailíní Lua spoke to David Hennessy about their upcoming show at London Irish Centre which kicks off a world tour.
Cailíní Lua are an all female trad group formed in Killaloe, Co. Clare.
The band, made up of sisters Laura and Katie Donoghue, Tara Brady and Eibhlín Gallagher, play London Irish Centre for a special St Brigid’s Day show on 1 February.
This show is also the first date of an international tour that also takes them to Norway, China, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.
But a world tour was far from their plans when they first founded as it was purely by chance that girls were put together to play a one- off show.
They were teenagers (15- 16) when the All-Ireland Fleadh Cheoil was being staged in Ennis in 2016 and organisers were desperately looking for a local group to perform at the Gig Rig.
Katie and Laura Donoghue, from Killaloe, are from a family who have been involved in trad all their lives.
When their mother got a phone call asking if she knew a group that could perform to fill an open slot, the Donoghue sisters would contact friends Tara Brady and Sarah Fox (who has since departed) to form what would become Cailíní Lua.
There was a great deal of chance in how you came together, wasn’t there?
Laura: “That was it.
“There was a last minute cancellation and someone had got in contact with our mam and they said to her, ‘Look, we’re stuck for a band, can you gather a few musicians or do you know a band to play?’
“So we were texting anyone we knew and we ended up with the four of us.
“We rocked on up to the Fleadh and there was a crowd of about 2,000 there so there was no time for getting nervous.
“It went really well. It was so much fun.
“We had great craic and then a lady came over asking us to play at her wedding.
“Another person asked for our CD.
“We had no CD but we said we could do the wedding.
“And then from that wedding, we got another one and then it was a ripple effect and we had so much fun and really enjoyed it.
“We said, ‘You know what? We’ll give this a go’.
“And this is our ninth year playing as a band.
“It’s been just the most fabulous nine years.
“It was just all by chance that this happened and it has just worked ever since.
“We’re all like sisters.”
Were you real ‘Fleadh babies’?
Katie: “Laura and I and Eibhlín would have been competing in the Fleadhs.
“I don’t know about Eibhlín, but Laura and I never won.”
Eibhlín: “No, I never won either.”
Katie: “We never won and year after year, we just kept losing.
“We really have found our niche (now) and it shows that you don’t have to win those competitions to succeed.
“Tara actually wasn’t a musician until Cailíní Lua.”
Tara: “Yeah, I just danced and I competed at the feiseanna.
“Then when I joined the band I said, ‘Listen, I’m gonna have to start doing something else’.
“So I taught myself the bodhrán and then my grandmother taught me the spoons so now I’m on the percussion but I love it.
“It all kind of happened quite naturally for us which is probably why it’s still working and why it works so well.
“It’s because we just let it happen naturally and didn’t push anything or didn’t force anything and it’s brought us here.
“I suppose that would be a good message for us to send out to even younger musicians and dancers: Do the competitions for enjoyment but there’s plenty more outside of that.”
Where did the name Cailíní Lua come from?
Laura: “Killaloe is where Kate and I are from but it’s where the band was founded.
“Killaloe in Irish is Cill Dalua so it’s ‘the girls of Killaloe’.
“However now we’re really the girls of the West because we’ve Miss Mayo here. Eibh is from Mayo.
“Eibh joined us just last year, and then Tara’s across the bridge in Balllina, Tipperary.”
Tara: “It’s a mix now but to be fair, the band was founded there.”
Katie: “When we started getting gigs and getting going, we set our sights on traveling internationally particularly with an interest in going to America.
“We said, ‘If we ever got the opportunity to do that, we would love to take a little piece of home with us’.
“So we wanted to take something from the town where it was founded and something as Gaeilge as well, if we could, just to spread the message even more.
“You’re right actually thinking back on it now, I think it probably was granddad.”
Katie: “But if you type Lua into Google Translate, it means early so people think we’re The Early Girls and that’s like the complete opposite.”
Laura: “The irony when we’re half an hour late. I’m joking.”
Tara: “Five minutes late.”
You have already gone to America and you’re now going on a tour that takes you to several countries in Europe and Asia..
Katie: “We’re so excited.
“We didn’t realise, I suppose, back then that there’s opportunities all over the world.
“The fact that we’re going to Shanghai is just so strange. It feels so surreal going over there.
“It’s just so cool that they want Irish music over there, and in Germany, and everywhere.”
It shows the appetite that there is for Irish music all over the world…
Katie: “Yeah, our music has a beat to it.
“I think a lot of people like that.
“You can dance to it. You can really go for it.”
Laura: “I feel like Irish traditional music is a really inclusive genre of music.
“It’s been fabulous getting to share it with other people.”
You have said it’s your mission to change the image of trad or should I say females in trad. You have said yourselves that sometimes people expect a trad band to be a bunch of lads with beards..
Tara: “That is the image, that’s the stereotype: Lads in aran jumpers and beards.
“Even recently they said, ‘Oh, you’re the trad band?’
“They can’t believe it.
“It’s a big part of our message and a big part of our mission and it’s very important to us.
“We’re an all-female band and it’s not an exclusive thing like, ‘Oh, there can’t be any men in the band’.
“We naturally formed as four women and then from then on, we realised there was a strength in that and a power in that because it’s not a common image to be seen in the trad world.
“It really isn’t.
“It’s usually mixed or male only and it’s only in the last couple of years that women have had the opportunity to come to the forefront so to be a part of that is really, really exciting.
“I suppose what we like to do as well is we like to push it a small bit.
“We like to dress a little bit edgier and you know what? We like to make it a bit sexy.
“That’s kind of what we want to be.
“It’s all about changing the face of trad but keeping the tradition there too.”
You have also started writing your own stuff starting with the recent single, XOX so the plan is to do your own thing too..
Laura: “Definitely.
“We’re kind of exploring where we want to go with our own compositions, songs that we write.”
Katie: “Yeah, I think our genre is going to be trad but with a little something else like a little pop or a little rock.
“I think we might do lots of different genres but you’ll always hear a little tin whistle or accordion in the background, or the bodhrán or the spoons.
“You’re going to hear that Irish style always in the background of our songs.
“We’re really inspired by the Corrs.
“That’s our inspiration because they were almost an all-girl trad band and they just went so far with it.
“I still watch them online for inspiration.”
Tara: “I think we would probably like to style ourselves on something like the Spice Girls or the Saturdays but coming from Ireland and being really strong about that, not wavering on where we’re from or what kind of genre we want to have.
“The tradition and the traditional style will always be our foundation.”
You will be playing at the London Irish Centre after the England v Ireland Six Nations match.
Are you rugby fans?
Laura: “We’re fans of rugby boys. I’m joking.
“We probably all come from really GAA backgrounds and areas.
“We would follow GAA a bit more.”
Katie: “However, when Ireland are playing, we’re all there in our jerseys watching it.
“We love it. I love the atmosphere in a pub on game day but maybe we’re not following it religiously.”
Speaking of GAA, have you all played? Do some of you still play?
Laura: “Kate and I played camogie when we were younger with our local hurling team.
“Then music was our infatuation so we couldn’t commit to both.
“But only last year I had great craic because they started a junior C camogie team in Killaloe.
“I joined it last year and went whenever I could, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
“I wasn’t very good but I thoroughly enjoyed it whenever I went training or whenever we’d a match.
“There was great craic with that and there’s a crossover between the band and a team, the way you’re united and you always have each other whether that’s on stage or on a pitch. You support each other through the duration of a performance or a match or whatever it may be.”
Katie: “We have a ritual with the four of us together.
“Because gigs can be so daunting because it can be such madness: So many people are there, all your friends, all your family, and you want to be out there having the craic, having a shot with them or whatever but we always come together right before a gig and we always have our little meeting and we have our little pep talk.
“We’re a team.
“We always have each other’s backs and through that then, we get such fun experiences, because we’re just so comfortable around each other.
“We’re all big fans of GAA but I think I can speak for all of us: We were not that good.”
Eibhlín: “No, bench warmers.”
Katie: “And I think at the age of around 12, 13 if you want to pursue something, you really do have to choose because camogie is on the same night as music class or dancing or whatever.
“You actually do have to choose and we all went with the music which we’re happy about.
“We love the GAA though.”
Tara, you are the reigning Tipperary Rose and represented Tipperary at the Rose of Tralee last summer..
Tara: “2024 was one of the best years of my life, it was absolutely mad but in the most fabulous way.
“I was selected as the Tipperary Rose in March and then about seven days later, I competed at the Irish dancing world championships in Glasgow.
“That was a busy week and I had all my (Cailíní Lua) girlies with me supporting me on both nights as usual.
“And then, of course, in August, we had the festival itself that the girls were at.
“And I was completing my masters at the same time so it was very busy year but it was such a fun year.
“It was so mad and I couldn’t have done it without the support of the girls because if they hadn’t been there to support me and supported me in my decision to go for it.
“And when I was selected, they gave me the time and opportunity to try and help me balance the gigs and the Rose duties too which was a busy, busy time.
“But if I didn’t have their support, I simply wouldn’t have been able to do it so Cailíní Lua just goes so far beyond a band.
“To be honest with you at this stage, it’s a sisterhood.”
You danced on the Dome stage…
Tara: “The girls and myself recorded a tune in the studio beforehand so I was able to dance to the girls’ music on stage which was really important to me.
“That’s one of the most beautiful things about being in a band or in a sisterhood; You’re never on your own on the stage, you always have someone to lean on.
“I was going up there on my own which was so different to what I had been doing for the last nine years going up with my sisters so I just felt if I had the music of the girls, I’d be that little bit stronger.”
One friend that Tara has coming to the show will be her room mate in Tralee, London Rose Glenna Mannion.
“I was so lucky to have Glenna as my roommate.
“She really made it what it was for me.
“I have a new friend in Glenna.
“I’m so lucky to have her.”
What have been your highlights of Cailíní Lua so far?
Eibhlín: “We played Hammerfest in Norway during the summer.
“It’s the northern most town in the world so we were there and it was bright all the time so we’d come out of a gig, it could be one o’clock or two o’clock in the morning and it was full brightness.
“That was mad, it was such a good experience.”
Laura: “I think one of my highlights was definitely going to Norway with Eibhlín because it was our first away day with Eibhs and we just had such a fabulous time.
“Eibhlín was thrown straight into it and she’s just been the most fabulous addition to Cailíní Lua and she has made it what it is now.
“We’re really progressing.
“I think she was our missing piece.
“She’s so committed.”
Katie: “We had her at a gig and we had to set up our PA system which we are really bad at.
“And poor Eibhlín said, ‘What will I do?’
“We were like, ‘No, sit down, relax’.
“But I looked back and saw her on her hands and knees with industrial tape taping down wires to the carpet.”
Laura: “Which we never thought of doing.”
Katie: “And it’s such a safety hazard so then we looked at each other and went, ‘Okay, this one’s a keeper’.”
Tara: “Then she started playing music and then we said, ‘Oh yeah, you’re in’.”
“Her commitment from the beginning was so astounding and it was something that we were really looking for because performing and being good musicians is obviously hugely important but the commitment is absolutely massive.
“You have to be willing to sacrifice so many things to make sure we’re all there on time, that we all are at the correct place, and that we’re able to commit to as many things as possible to maximise our opportunities as much as possible so you really have to be on the same page.
“Her commitment from the beginning was so astounding and it’s just the missing piece.”
Tara you didn’t give a highlight or maybe you did, was it your whole Rose of Tipperary experience that your Cailíní Lua sisters joined you for?
Tara: “It was a very, very special moment.
“To represent Tipperary on an international stage is something I never thought I’d get to do but I think Cailíní Lua is its own horse.
“It’s out there on its own and there’s nothing like performing with these girls.
“We’re so proud of how much we’ve achieved over the last couple of years but we’re not halfway there.
“We have so much more we want to do and we’re really determined to do it.”
Cailíní Lua play London Irish Centre on 1 February.
For more information and to book, click here.
They also played Light Air Festival in Geiranger, Norway on 22 February, Shangai St Patrick’s Day Ball 4- 12 March, Irish Bayrich Festival in Munich 12- 15 June, Skagen Festival in Denmark on 4 and 5 July and Bie Dap Festival in Appingedam in Netherlands on 29- 31 August.
For more information on the band, click here.