What's the Craic with Eithne Mac: Volume 1

On joining Substack, making music, and Twilight (2008).

Hi. Welcome to the first ever issue of the world renowned What’s the Craic with Eithne Mac.

I consider myself lucky to have been given a comically Irish name that’s allowed the nickname ‘Eithne Mac What’s the Craic’ – pronounced as one word with a Cork lilt ‘ETNAMACWAHSDCRAIC’ – to be bestowed upon me.

That said, most people named Eithne are typically born in or before the early 1900s and therefore have a tendency towards being dead. Thankfully, I am neither of those things.

For those of you who don’t know me (on writing this I have one subscriber and she’s my cousin. Hi Paige!) my name, as previously stated, is Eithne and I’m from Cork. Very important information as anyone from Cork will quickly make apparent. See below.

I’m a singer, a song-writer, a music-maker, an artist of sorts.

What the absolute jaysus am I doing here?

I set up this Substack account before the closing curtains of 2024. The looming new year seemed as good a time as any to look towards getting back into long-form writing, an activity I enjoy almost as much as procrastination.

For weeks now I have been unsure what my first offering should be about. That is until I realised that I allowed the first birthday of my first born to go by entirely unnoticed. There, in the light of its dark neglect, the idea for this piece was born.

Me? A mother at the unjustifiably infantile age of 30? Not to any human children, no. And while I live everyday in the hopes that a member of the queer community will tell me I am mothering, I cannot claim to have achieved mother status either.

The first born’s birthday I am referring to is that of my first original musical release, Bad Dream. Born into the world on the 19th of January 2024 at the healthy size of 4 minutes and 41 seconds. Happy birthday, my sad, beautiful child.

My thinking is to use this space in part to talk about my music – its creation, inspiration, process, what have you. Perhaps I’ll even overshare. Who knows!

These essays will also be subject to my general musings and buffoonery, because I’m all about delivering value to the reader. You can expect lots of references to TV shows created in the 90s, among other entirely useless thoughts that visit my mind.

So, bringing it back to music, and the thing that led me to write this very piece in the first place, let’s delve a little into Bad Dream.

The making of Bad Dream

You know in statistical reports when it cites a total of [insert large figure].5 amount of people? The kind that makes absolutely every Irish person remark “ah jaysus, where would you be going with your half a person haha”? This song was that puzzling point five decimal for a time.

That is to say that Bad Dream arrived to me in two very separate waves.

Writing

The melody and lyrics of the verses landed with a thud into my mind while out walking. I often find ideas have space to come through when I am otherwise occupied. By the time I arrived home, they were fully formed as they are in the recording. Always satisfying when it happens that way!

Its melodic pattern and cadence feel like a lullaby to me. An attempt to self-soothe in what was a uniquely painful and confusing time in my life.

I was a few short months out of a very long, very abusive relationship. Very much still in survival mode. Very much only scratching the surface of what I had been through.

A suggestion of a chorus had formed, but I knew it wasn’t the one.

At that time I was (unsurprisingly) very judgemental and critical of myself and my creativity. Thankfully, I had the awareness to shelve the self-berating and leave the song alone for a bit. At least until I had more distance from everything and could return to it from a place of more clarity and perspective.

This happened two years later.

I sat down at the piano, ready to speak to that idea again, when the remainder of the song unfurled. I think I tinkered around for all of two minutes before it came out.

I’m afraid this is a classic case of the insufferable “I was the vessel and the song just revealed itself through me” craic. I know. I’m sorry.

But it really is true in this case. I played the verses as I had written them, and everything else just followed. I sang the entire song through to the end without ever having heard it before. This was a new experience for me.

Producing

A few months later when I was feeling brave enough, I sent the voice recording to my brother, Cian, who is my musical collaborator and certified production wizard. (Pictured below playing sax, with me on vocals, and my sister Ciara on keys back in the Marigold Yellow days of the turn of the millennium.)

It was an uncomfortably vulnerable thing for me to do at the time. Sharing something so frighteningly raw and real was SCARY. But I’m glad I did.

We set about making the song from here, always with the intention of staying true to the original voice recording, just lightly supported by some gentle production.

The great thing about working with a sibling is that kind of shared vision that exists without needing to say much. Growing up in the same (evidently yellow) household, our musical intuition and inclinations are often just understood. Plus you can tell the other one when one of you is being a bit of a plague.

We recorded the main vocal in the spare bedroom in Cian’s house, with me singing into an open wardrobe filled with clothes that served as sound treatment. Needs must!

The first couple of takes were shaky. I was holding back tears, trying to not become overwhelmed and embarrassed by my intense vulnerability, despite it being a safe space. The nervous system, eh? (Shrugs and smirks like a bashful sitcom character.)

The moment I noticed myself shifting away from expression and into singing mode, I stopped. I did six takes in total.

I recorded all of the additional vocals hunched over my bedroom desk while in somewhat of a hurry as my friend Jack was on his way to pick me up. We watched the first Twilight movie with our friend Darragh, laughing at its sheer terribleness and our undying affection for it in our teenage years.

When quickly laying down those backing vocals, I wasn’t sure if we would even use them in the song, and now they’re some of my favourite things about it. Honourable mention for my vocal stacks of seven harmonies in the pre-choruses. I could do that shit all day.

Oh no am I being annoying

I have the sudden fear that I’m starting to sound like that absolute melt at a party who won’t shut up about themselves and the divine process that brings their creative vision to life. They’re a trust-fund baby who makes sculptures out of items they’ve pulled from the bins of working class areas. I’m just a girl who likes to make music about her trauma teehee.

Anyway, if you’ve made this far, thank you for indulging me. I hope my exploring my memories of making Bad Dream has been of some interest to you and that did not induce acid reflux, severe cringing, or other unpleasant feelings and sensations.

As I wrap up my first volume of WTCWEM, I’d like to finish by earnestly acknowledging how proud I am of Bad Dream, something that doesn’t come easily to me as a profoundly Irish woman. The fact that I was able to write and release this song is a huge deal for me on a personal level. It’s a reminder how far I’ve come and of my strength in getting out of and surviving abuse.

It’s truthful, raw, and imperfect. It is and will always be my first creative offspring. The thing that finally gave me the permission to call myself – but most importantly, to truly see myself as – an artist.

Before I go, some updates!

My housemate and dear friend Sarah (Sorcha) Dawson has written a brilliant play called “Sorry that happened to you”, a dark comedy about life after sexual assault. I’m very excited and genuinely honoured to be providing original music for this important work. We’re performing in the Boy’s School in Smock Alley Theatre on Feb 25th & 26th. Get your tickets folks!

I’ve also written a 6-track EP that is currently in the works. Why I have chosen to make my debut EP so long is as much of a mystery to me as it is to you, but the heart wants what it wants.

I will be back talking shite here soon. Please do follow along. In the meantime, stay well and mind yourselves. I hope January has been and continues to be kind to you.

Grá mór,

Eithne x