![\"Rónán](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/YEQXQDLCBNHU5KJTBH56OSBHCQ.jpg\")
R\u00f3n\u00e1n \u00d3 Snodaigh and Myles O’Reilly <\/p>\nI\u2019m trying to write a song right now. With this one, I had a stray idea of how a sound would go up in crescendo, building momentum. <\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t really have a purpose for the sound other than musical. I was recording with Myles O\u2019Reilly, and I sang a phonetic vocal on it, kind of gobbledygook, but it sounded good.<\/p>\n
Myles was saying, \u201cWe have to keep going with this,\u201d but I\u2019m struggling to turn the gobbledygook into something meaningful. So it stands out, so I can enjoy singing it in the future. You find out as soon as you go to a gig, whether a song carries you. Whether it leaks energy or brings energy. Some songs don\u2019t last. Myles is someone who brings out the vibrant stuff. <\/p>\n
Sometimes a song comes as a lyric, sometimes you get something walking down the road, or sometimes it comes out as a very distinct, emotional thing when you want to solve a puzzle or change your way of looking at something. <\/p>\n
I was getting so upset with the abuse the Israeli army is doing to the Palestinian population that it ripped me to the core every day emotionally. And I thought, I have to write; I have to find some pattern in my mind. I thought, \u201cCan I empathise with the Israeli soldiers?\u201d<\/p>\n
What I came to was: \u201cThere\u2019s no such thing as the enemy, it\u2019s just people like you and me.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019d played it a million times when Myles said, \u201cWrite it as Gaeilge, R\u00f3n\u00e1n\u201d. <\/p>\n
R\u00f3n\u00e1n \u00d3 Snodaigh and Myles O’Reilly <\/p>\n
It was a real challenge; I\u2019d formed the pathways in English, and I had to forget all those words. I struggled with it for a long time, but it turned into:<\/p>\n
\u201cN\u00edor f\u00edor duit, gur do namhaid iad son <\/p>\n
daoine daonna mar b\u2019ionann linn fh\u00e9in <\/p>\n
Mise thusa, tusa mise<\/p>\n
N\u00edor f\u00edor duit, gur do namhaid iad son<\/p>\n
Br\u00e9ag \u00e9 sin a deireann tu leat fh\u00e9in<\/p>\n
Mise thusa, tusa mise\u201d<\/p>\n
Since I started writing songs as a teenager, I\u2019ve had a way of making the words not sit on the page, so it\u2019s not just poetry.<\/p>\n
I grew up speaking Gaeilge, living in Sandymount in Dublin. It felt like we were growing up in enemy territory, where sometimes everyone was against us. You didn\u2019t feel it all the time \u2013 we were just kids running around in a gang, playing football or cycling our bikes. But I didn\u2019t like the feeling I had when I was young. That we were kind of on the sly like: \u201cShut the door quick, they\u2019re gone, Is f\u00e9idir linn Gaeilge a labhairt! Cad \u00e9 an sc\u00e9al? I dunno! It\u2019s weird out there!\u201d<\/p>\n
I remember my dad and all his friends marching for Cearta Gaeilge. At the time, I thought, \u201cThis is weird, I only know Gaeilge\u201d. The trend was to shut Gaeilge, nationalism and patriotism down.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m still learning English now. I\u2019m proud of the English I have, but I\u2019ve deliberately couched it in Dublin vernacular. <\/p>\n
I went to Col\u00e1iste Eoin for secondary school. It was a healthy place to be, where you were allowed to express yourself. The m\u00fainteoir\u00ed and the br\u00e1ithre were interested in you, and there was a flamboyance to the place. <\/p>\n
I played sports and tried to learn the tin whistle, but I was kicked out of the class after two minutes. I think I whacked another kid on the head with the yoke. I tried the guitar too, and then I picked up a bodhr\u00e1n Mama had got for my brother Colm. When you\u2019re young, it is all about skill. As you grow, it\u2019s not just skills, the project is not to be selfish. I wanted to be good enough to play with the people I wanted to play with. <\/p>\n
I was 16 or so when my brother Rossa started a banna ceoil, and he asked me to join. We got off some classes, and it gave us an excuse to be part of the outside world. There was a feeling in Col\u00e1iste Eoin, \u201cM\u00e1 t\u00e1 s\u00e9 Gaelach bh\u00ed cead\u201d, even if you\u2019re doing punk rock.<\/p>\n
We were playing our musical heroes at the time, and we were all into different kinds of music. Really quickly we had a band that actually rocked. We started busking in town, took some abuse, gave some abuse and made a few bob. We got a gig in Germany in 1988, and that was us. K\u00edla<\/a> were on the road. <\/p>\n I never admire guitar players who collect 30 guitars. I try to have as few bodhr\u00e1ns as possible. I give them away or sell them sometimes. I used to be attached to things, but being attached to things outside of yourself doesn\u2019t last. <\/p>\n How many do I have now? Let\u2019s see … aon, d\u00f3, tr\u00ed, ceathair, c\u00faig, s\u00e9, seacht, ocht, naoi, deich, aon d\u00e9ag, d\u00f3 d\u00e9ag, tr\u00ed d\u00e9ag. That\u2019s me embarrassing myself. Half of them are cranky or broken.<\/p>\n The one I use at the minute, it\u2019s really fancy. I got it off a friend years ago. It was in bad shape, you could hear it all the time. I was so afraid of it. It was too hot, too look-at-me. That\u2019s the opposite of what I play music for. <\/p>\n I cut bits out of it and put a little wool in it to calm down the resonance, and I stuck some stickers on it. That is why I took it: it will remind me not to be arrogant. That\u2019s the journey with this bodhr\u00e1n. <\/p>\n In conversation with Rosanna Cooney. This interview is part of a series about well-known people\u2019s lives and relationship with Ireland. K\u00edla will be joined by special guests at the National Stadium in Dublin on January 23rd for F\u00e9ile K\u00edla, tickets \u20ac30, kila.ie<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019m trying to write a song right now. With this one, I had a stray idea of how…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,15338,61,60,115563,709,1454,115564],"class_list":["post-224418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gaeilge","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kila","tag-magazine","tag-me-myself-and-ireland","tag-ronan-o-snodaigh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}