Limerick folk singer teases first track of upcoming 'cathartic' album

A LIMERICK folk singer has teased the first track of his new ‘cathartic’ album to be released next year.

Paddy Dennehy has announced a new album ‘Love and Be Brave’ to be released in the spring of 2023 and has shared the first track Heaven Not Far.

Paddy is a folk singer-songwriter, originally from Limerick, now based in Cork.

Paddy described the first track on the new album as his “little humanist prayer.”

He said: “I’m not shying away from any of the problems that I think we all face - accepting death, the search for hope, the search for love, social media - but I wanted the main theme of the song to be the incredible potential to make something wonderful, wherever you happen to be, right now.”

He studied classical piano as a young boy, but it was the extra bit at the end of the lesson that he lived for every Thursday for almost fifteen years. He got to learn about music theory, the shape of songs, how a melody worked and didn’t work, why you had to learn your scales.

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 Hot Press Magazine in Ireland, Folk Radio UK, Rolling Stone France, to name a few and learned how to teach children whilst wearing a FFP2 face mask.

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The songs on that album and his lucky stars have allowed Paddy to share a stage with the likes of Mick Flannery, Glen Hansard, Imelda May and Lisa Hannigan.  

‘Love and Be Brave’ is the title of his second album to be released in the spring of 2023 and is a collection of songs that discuss what it means to fall in love, loneliness and the search for hope.

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,” he said.

Paddy will play upstairs in Dolan’s on December 17. Tickets available on www.dolans.ie.