Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin is ádraigínNíUallacháan Irish singer, songwriter, academic writer from Ireland.
Background
Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin was born into an Irish-speaking household in County Louth to Pádraig Ó hUallacháin and Eithne Devlin, from Cullyhanna, County Armagh. Her father, a teacher, writer and song collector collected older songs from the Oriel area and in Rannafast, and encouraged her and her siblings to sing. Her family childhood was in Ballina County Mayo, in Ramelton & Carrigart County Donegal and in Dundalk County Louth. She has seven siblings.
She attended St Louis Secondary boarding school, Monaghan, County Monaghan before beginning a degree course at University College Dublin and University of Ulster.. She received her doctorate in 2009 from the University of Ulster. She lived in Mullaghbawn, County Armagh in the historic Belmont Barracks house 1983-2023 and has returned to live in County Louth.
Career
In 1977, Pádraigín was the first woman to read the news headlines in Irish at RTÉ, Ireland's national broadcaster. She also researched and presented numerous radio programmes in English and in Irish for RTÉ Radio.
She left RTÉ in 1980 to study for a Master's degree in the University of Ulster and in 1984 was appointed as a teacher in Dundalk, County Louth. She left teaching in 1999 and since then is a full-time professional musician.
Recordings
In 1994, Pádraigín recorded her first full-length album with producer/musician Garry Ó Briain. A Stór is a Stóirín on the Gael Linn label and featured 36 songs for all ages.
Britain's Channel 4 commissioned music videos of a number of songs on the album for a series Rí Rá. The videos later became regular features on TG4 between 1996 and 1998.
In 1995, Pádraigín she recorded her second album An Dara Craiceann: Beneath the Surface (produced by Garry Ó Briain). It featured unaccompanied sean-nós songs and traditional songs set to her new compositions, including a work by Irish poet Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.
Pádraigín's third album, When I Was Young - an album for children, a collaboration between her, Garry Ó Briain and traditional singer Len Graham, which was released on the Gael Linn label in 1999 and later on Shanachie label US. Two years later, Pádraigín released a fourth album, An Irish Lullaby: Suantraí, on the Shanachie label in the United States. The recording featured Garry Ó Briain, Máire Breatnach,harpist Helen Davies, fiddler Nollaig Casey and Uilleann piper Ronan Browne.
From 1997 to 2012 Ní Uallacháin was a regular performer with the Danish composer musician Palle Mikkleborg and harpist Helen Davies. She is the vocalist on his soundtrack for the Goethe film Light, Darkness and Colour (1998) and is also the vocalist on the title track of his album Song Tread Lightly (CD 2002). One of her own song compositions Don't give me the whole truth' (Ná tar le hIomlán na Fírinne) is featured on Helen Davies 'Open the Door Softly (CD 2000); her composition An Leannán (The Beloved) is played by Mikkleborg and Davies and Mikkel Nordsoe on Masters of the Irish Harp (CD 2011) and also on her Áilleacht CD.
Other musicians with whom she has collaborative recordings include Steve Vai, Liam O'Flynn, Steve Cooney, Máire Breatnach, Dónal O'Connor, Macdara Ó hUallacháin-Graham. She has also collaborated on new compositions with poets Ciaran Carson, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Biddy Jenkinson and Seamus Heaney.
A Hidden Ulster- people, songs and traditions of Oriel
2003- 2005 may have been Ní Uallacháin's most prolific period with the results of her intensive research, recorded on an album of restored Oriel songs, An Dealg Óir CD (produced by Steve Cooney, Gael Linn 2003) and her magnus opus, A Hidden Ulster: People, songs and traditions of Oriel published 2004, Four Courts Press. Following that award winning publication, her pioneering work continued as the first woman to record an album of new compositions in Irish with Áilleacht CD (Beauty, produced by Steve Cooney, Gael Linn 2005).