Not too long ago, in 1845, there was a Famine in the country of Ireland. It remained until 1849 and within that time an estimated 1,500,000 people died. Currently the Republic of Ireland’s population rests just below 5,000,000 people, so you can see how catastrophic this Famine was to the country.
At the time a lot of children were left orphaned with many of them being put to work. There was an opportunity for young girls to travel to a safe place with food and people to build new lives, and that place was called Australia. The girls had to be of age, suitable and healthy. Of these poor orphans, 4,000 of them set sail for a new life.
Brendan Graham wrote the song ‘Orphan Girl’ for an annual commemoration in Australia and it describes the emotions and feelings of these girls going through this process. In 2015, the Choral Scholars of University College Dublin were preparing for the recording of their first disc ‘Invisible Stars’. I was asked to sing ‘Orphan Girl’ by the brilliant Brendan Graham and I continue to sing this emotional song with the choir to this day.
Although performing this song takes a lot of emotional perseverance, I love singing it. Every time I do I want to bring something new to the performance, be it an ornamentation, a movement or an emotion. I have since sung it for the President of Ireland, at Nuit des Choeurs in Belgium and Carnegie Hall, New York City.
The summer of 2016 saw myself and a couple of the female singers of the choir shoot a stunning music video in the awe-inducing countryside of county Mayo, Ireland. We were blessed with the weather and a fantastic vision from Zucca Films, and it resulted in something that we are all proud of.