Mary Dillon spoke to David Hennessy ahead of her concert at The Irish Cultural Centre with Neil Martin and Dónal O’Connor.
Mary Dillon, well known as the former singer of Déanta, comes to the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith this weekend with Neil Martin and Dónal O’Connor.
Although it is a new enough combination which even came together by accident, this trio shows three of Irish traditional music’s best coming together.
Mary Dillon started singing at an early age and by her mid-teens, she had twice won the All Ireland Singing Competition at Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann.
In the 1990s, she recorded three albums with the Irish traditional band Déanta.
In 2010, she released the EP, Army of Dreamers.
She would follow this with the album, North in 2013.
She also joined fellow folk singer Niamh Parsons and Tríona McSherry to form a cappella group, Sí Van.
Mary is also the sister of the well known folk singer, Cara Dillon.
Dónal O’Connor comes from a long and distinguished lines of Irish fiddlers and singers and his collaborations have variously included membership of Ulaid and At First Light, Lá Lugh and RTÉ Radio Folk Singer Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh’s touring emsemble. He has also established himself as one of Ireland’s leading producers and musicians having played and recorded with the likes of John McSherry, Liam Ó Maonlaí, Duke Special, Davy Spillane, Ríoghnach Connolly, Steve Cooney, Bob Brozman and Karen Matheson to name a few.
Dónal adjudicated last year’s Fiddler of London competition at the London Irish Centre.
He is also Artistic Director of the Belfast Tradfest.
Hailing from Belfast, Neil Martin is a highly accomplished cellist and composer who has left an indelible mark on the world of classical and traditional music in Ireland. Born with a passion for both genres, Neil’s journey has been defined by his ability to seamlessly traverse the boundaries between them, creating a unique and captivating musical identity. His work has been performed across the world from Ground Zero to Mostar Bridge and the Royal Albert Hall, as well as being played on the International Space Station.
As a producer, arranger and musician, Neil has contributed to over 100 albums and has performed in international venues, such as Carnegie Hall and Palazzo Vecchio.
The Irish World saw him at Temple Bar Tradfest in 2023 where he joined actor Stephen Rea, the musicians The Mulcahy Sisters and poet Felispeaks for a special show.
The Irish World caught up with Mary Dillon.
Are you looking forward to coming over to London?
“Of course I am.
“I don’t think I’ve been in London in years and years.”
Have you played the Irish Cultural Centre before?
“Never, never have I done that.
“I know a lot of people that have and they say it’s a great place to play, that it’s a very friendly and lovely place but I’ve never been there so I’m really looking forward to seeing it.”
It will be yourself, Neil and Dónal, are you a relatively new trio?
“Oh yes. This is nearly brand new.
“I think we’ve done about three gigs together and It’s nice.
“They sound nice so we just said, ‘We’ll do another few’.
“It does sound lovely.”
How did it come together then?
Was it just a case of, not an accident, but did it almost happen very organically?
“You’re right using that word, an ‘accident’ is probably the best way to describe it.
“I don’t even know.
“I played individually with each of them in the past.
“I’ve known them for years but I don’t know.
“We met and we were doing something together.
“I can’t even remember now but we did a couple of songs together and a few arrangements and sounds lovely.
“Neil’s on the cello and it’s just lovely, a wee bit different.”
It just works, you do know each other a long time at this stage..
“Oh God we do.
“Neil Martin produced the first CD that we did when I was in a group called Déanta years and years ago.
“He produced that so that’s the early 90s: Long, long time ago.
“And I know Dónal through just through the traditional music scene, I know him well as well.
“It’s nice, it’s working out well.”
Speaking of the band Déanta which you first rose to prominence with, they must have been great days, were they?
“Oh God, they were absolutely great.
“We were all really young, really stupid and just loved the craic.
“We used to do all these festivals in Europe and they were just holidays.
“We were all such good friends that every concert was just a great laugh.
“It was just great.”
Your sister Cara is also a well known singer. It must have been a very musical house you grew up in, was it?
“Well, I’m sure you probably know this through your Cara anyway.
“Mummy and daddy never had a note in their head but my grandmother was a traditional singer and there was always music, Irish music on in the house when we were wee.
“The teachers in the primary school taught us traditional songs and when we did school plays, they weren’t like what you would get like The Sound of Music and stuff.
“The teachers would write their own plays and turn them into musicals and they would be about legends and heroes of Ireland and they would bring in Irish traditional music.
“It was fabulous.
“I haven’t heard about another school doing that in a long, long time.
“I remember the teachers putting together Deirdre and the sons of Uisneach and they just turned it into a whole musical and the whole school was involved.
“We were all primary school.
“They were fabulous.
“Fabulous.
“We didn’t realise it at the time, what an education we were getting and it was quite unique.
“And then there were the comhaltas classes and most of the wee uns in the town went to those.
“It was just everywhere.”
When did you start taking music seriously?
“Well, I didn’t really do it as a career to be honest.
“I went into teaching and everybody else in Deanta had their own careers.
“I mean there were three or four teachers in the group. There’s a dentist, a pharmacist and everybody was pursuing their career that way.
“I remember us one time of having a talk about it.
“We were being encouraged to go professional and people were in the middle of their university courses, I had ended mine and I had been offered a job.
“It just wasn’t the right time for everybody so everybody went and did their own jobs.
“We did get back together now last year and the year before for a few gigs and they were just great craic.
“It was like muscle memory.
“We didn’t even really have to do that much rehearsal and everybody remembered every harmony and it was beautiful but everybody’s still in their own jobs.
“There hasn’t been much time for the music really (with the teaching).
“When you get home from school, you just throw yourself on the sofa and the next thing you know, you’re sleeping.”
It sounds like those great teachers you had inspired you with the music but also to teach..
“They were absolutely brilliant: Lovely, lovely teachers.
“Brilliant teachers and just highly inspired, highly inspired so, so many.
“Now I teach the evenings at home here traditional singing, the young ones.
“They’re some craic. They’re loving it.”
What was the highlight for you of the stages you played and other things you did?
“I think a highlight for me was the first time we went to Lorient (Interceltic Festival) in Brittany.
“I just thought that was unbelievable.
“I’d never been to a festival like that in my life.
“It was just so big, there was music everywhere.
“Actually it was going on nearly all day and all night.
“You were awakened at five o’clock in the morning with pipes outside the dormitory windows and stuff.
“It was unreal and the craic was mighty there.
“That’s to me, that was just the highlight of all the festivals I’ve ever been to.”
Is there a chance Déanta could get back together for more gigs in the future?
“Well, I think we did about three or four concerts in the last couple of years.
“Nothing since, they’re all just flat out dispensing medicine and pulling out teeth and teaching wee uns.”
Will this new project of you, Neil and Dónal continue? Could you do some recording perhaps?
“Well there’s talk about it.
“We have talked briefly about it.
“We’ll chat more about it, I would say, when we’re over in London and we get a wee proper chinwag.
“They’re lovely people. They’re great craic.
“That matters.
“If somebody’s too serious and all, you just couldn’t be bothered.
“But they’re great craic and they’re so talented.
“And the sound works.
“And I just love it.”
You played Belfast Tradfest for one of your early gigs, how was that?
“That festival is, oh my God, it’s just magic. It is magic.
“Dónal is actually the artistic director of that festival, if you don’t mind,” Mary jokes with a lofty inflection to her tone.
“It’s fabulous.
“It’s getting bigger and bigger and bigger by the year and the concerts are deadly, and the session trails and then there’s all these classes for the young ones.
“It’s just amazing, just amazing.
“And then we’re getting the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in Belfast next year, 2026. That’s just been announced and that’s going to be a first for Belfast.”
That’s exciting, isn’t it? And shows how times have changed..
“I’m telling you, times they are a changing and about time.”
You grew up in Dungiven during the Troubles and thankfully those days are gone..
“Thanks be to God. Nobody wants to see those days back.
“It was everywhere.
“It was on the news all the time, on the radios and the TV.
“You would go to the shop and there would soldiers lying in the backyard and then you nearly trip over them, you just pretend that you didn’t see them.
“I do remember one time when I was about sixteen going over to stay with my aunt, who lived in Morecambe, and the cousins took me shopping, me and another cousin and I couldn’t get over that there were no checkpoints.
“I kept looking around. I couldn’t get over it.
“There were no checkpoints, there was no army.
“That was a new one to me.
“I just thought that was normal.
“It was quite unsettling that time the shopping centre because I really wasn’t sure what was going on.
“I thought, ‘Oh my God’. I still remember that feeling.”
But now we are talking about traditional music festivals and even a Fleadh in Belfast..
“That’s it, that’s the future. That’s the future now.
“Thanks be to God that is the future now: The music and the camaraderie and community.
“That’s what it’s all about.
“That’s what it should have been about.”
Have you and your sister done that much singing together?
“We haven’t done very much together because if Cara’s home, she’s either home for a couple of days or she’s doing some gigs.
“It’s just never really happened.
“I’ve done backing vocals on some of her CDs and we did a wee Christmas song together on her Christmas CD.
“But if there’s a wee family party, these things can happen.
“When she comes home, it’s full flight.
“They’re good craic.”
Mary Dillon, Dónal O’Connor and Neil Martin play The Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith this Saturday 1 March.
For more information and to book, click here.
