The Kerry alt-folk artist teases another track from his forthcoming album The End.
Ronan Kealy signed to Pete Doherty’s label Strap Originals after the Libertines singer saw him perform recently in Dublin, and the album is released on September 5th (a list of Irish upcoming Irish releases are here).
Following the discombobulating ‘Small Violence’, ‘Welcome To My Mountain’ arrives with a video shot by Ellius Grace and featuring comedian and noted Junior Brother fan Peter McGann (who is making a habit of music video appearances).
‘Welcome To My Mountain’ is the album’s opening track, a warped ehistle and accordion-featuring tune which started with Kealy attempting to write a slipjig style of song – “the song’s main whistle riff was the result. With this, the song mutated into quite a large beast of a yoke, the beginning of a journey into the mouth of modern madness. The lyrics were largely taken from an actual firsthand account of a man getting lost in a Fairy Fort while walking home, heard from UCD’s great folklore podcast Blúiríní Béaloidis.”
Junior says of the video:
“An older Local in rural Ireland relays the events of a strange encounter with another world to a Collector. The Collector brings to this tale his tape machine and his cynicism, but ends up immersed, and ultimately trapped, in the rural purgatory the Local Man describes. Teller and Collector become merged, within the pastoral world of the Old Man’s nightmare.”
ABOUT THE ALBUM ‘THE END’
The End is a deeply instinctive yet carefully considered response to the chaos of modern life, with Junior Brother weaving the recent years of upheaval into the eerie folklore of Fairy Forts. These ring-shaped earth mounds, scattered across the Irish countryside, are known to possess an energy that can bewilder, curse, or even lead the unwary astray. Stepping into one is to risk losing yourself—both physically and spiritually. To Junior Brother, this ancient folklore mirrors the disorienting reality of today’s world.
“The sound of the album is supposed to take the organic instruments of Irish traditional music and lift them somewhere else,”Junior Brother explains, “like the otherworldly Irish music sometimes heard from Fairy Forts at twilight on country roads, impossible to recreate upon hearing.”The End captures this essence, blending the raw textures of traditional Irish music with spectral, unearthly elements.
Much of the album’s inspiration was drawn from UCD’s Folklore Collection on duchas.ie, “I delved into the manuscripts—endless eyewitness accounts of Fairy Forts being stepped into and the land altering, the familiar mutating,”Junior Brother shares. “Farmers, teachers, the sober, the smart—all losing their way home one way or the other.” In these uncanny tales of displacement and confusion, he found striking parallels to the instability and distortion of contemporary life.
Thematically, The End explores forces that work against nature (New Road, Welcome to My Mountain), the rise of the far-right (Small Violence, Today My Uncle Told Me), and confrontations with mortality (Old Bell, Start Digging). Through the lens of rural Irish folklore, the album reflects the bewildering madness of the present moment.
“The title The End represents the moment after being led astray, when the grip of madness releases you and you suddenly see your way home,” says Junior Brother. “It may reflect the doom of a world gone mad, but it also represents the end of darkness, and the start of a new road.”
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Junior Brother Live
June
6 GLASGOW Glad Cafe
7 STIRLING The Tolbooth
July
6 LIMAVADY Stendhal Festival NI
August
9 ANTRIM Under the Drum Festival NI
12 EDINBURGH La Belle Angelle supporting Peter O’Doherty
13 EDINBURGH La Belle Angelle supporting Peter O’Doherty
29 DORSET End of the Road Festival with the Incredible String Band
September
12 CORK The Pav Sounds From a Safe Harbour Festival Album Launch
13 DUBLIN Grand Social Club Album Launch
14 DUBLIN Grand Social Club Album Launch
20 LONDON South Bank Centre QE Hall with the Incredible String Band
21 DROGHEDA Vantastival Festival
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10 TRALEE LASTA Festival Síamsa Tire
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14 GALWAY Róisín Dubh
15 LIMERICK Upstairs at Dolan’s Warehouse
21 DERRY Sandinos
22 BANGOR Open House Festival
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26 BIRMINGHAM The Victoria
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28 LEEDS Hyde Park Book Club
29 MANCHESTER Gulliver’s
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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, Cara Magazine, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, founder of Lumo Club, club promoter, event curator and producer of gigs, listening parties & events in Dublin.
