The Kilkenny-born, Dublin-raised singer Cat Dowling died on Friday August 7th after a long illness at the age of 54.
Dowling first emerged fronting Babelfish, the band that became Alphastates who were one of the most singular Irish groups of the noughties, whose Made From Sand arrived in 2004 and Human Nature in 2009 before they split the following year. The band had electro pop and trip-hop influences which was rare for an Irish band of that time.
Cat Dowling solo career began properly with The Believer in 2013, an album we premiered here in May of that year. Writing about it at the time, I said she sounded “revitalised and focused” — that unbound from a band, “Dowling’s lone creative vision works much better.” She put the new writing down to becoming a mother: motherhood was primal and grounding, she said, and you no longer messed around with time.
The record traded Alphastates’ electronic production for guitar, piano and violin, with Karl Odlum and former Alphastates man Gerry Horan producing – I was a big supporter of the album, posting ‘Come On’ a couple of months earlier, and followed with the videos for ‘Somebody Else’ and ‘The Believer’.
The album led with Dowling’s authorative and expressive voice.
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The title track found a second life through a sync placement on the US TV series Banshee and The Witches of East End, while ‘Somebody Else’ turned up in the Irish film My Name Is Emily, the kind of sync that kept an independent Irish artist’s catalogue landing far beyond home. She returned in 2021 with the album Animals produced by Horan with Dowling co-producing, which we covered at the time.
She kept working through illness. Her reading of The Pogues’ ‘A Rainy Night in Soho’ became the soundtrack to the Department of Foreign Affairs’ St Patrick’s Day campaign, and she appeared at the Dublin launch of Rock Against Homelessness in aid of Focus Ireland in January, and recent collaborations with Peter Vogelaar placed her voice in a vocal electronic context once more.
In June she posted that she had a lot of new material she hoped to record this year. “It’s the longest day with the greatest amount of light. Light aways overcomes darkness no matter how dark this world gets painted at times. Let’s keep shining and spreading our light. I have so much new material and I really hope I can get to record it this year. Art conquers the divide. We need more coming together. Always keep her lit my friends.”
Tributes were paid to her by Jerry Fish who said “Cat was a warrior for love, a gentle soul, humble and generous to a fault. We will miss her Punk heart and rasping angel of a voice.”
Whelan’s paid tribute to the songwriter, saying “another great talent lost from Dublin’s music family.”
Condolences to her family and friends. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam.
Rest in power Cat.
The funeral will take place tomorrow Tuesday August 11th – reposing at Power’s in Ferrybank tomorrow from 2.30pm, requiem mass Wednesday at 1pm in the Sacred Heart Church, burial at Glenmore.
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
