Mary McLaughlin Biography (2024)

Background
Mary Mc Laughlin is a singer / songwriter / teacher who is steeped in the Ulster Gaelic song tradition of her native Ireland where she was born and raised.

Mary records, performs and teaches workshops in Gaelic song and culture. She specialises in The Keen (Irish Funeral Lament) and Fairy Song. Being a songwriter herself, Mary is very conscious that behind every song there is a story, so is passionate about the depth of Irish traditional song. She has toured extensively throughout North America, teaching and performing at Celtic / Irish camps.

Performing
Mary lived for many years in London and performed on the English Folk Scene, singing and playing guitar and keyboards with various groups including Anonyma (a duo with singer-songwriter Anne Lister), with whom she still periodically works, having guested on Anne's 'Astrolabe' album (2019); multi- instrumentalist Steafán Hannigan and the Martin Simpson Band.

In 1997 Mary moved to California, during which time she toured extensively throughout the USA with various ensembles and bands (including Martin Simpson’s U.S. band, and Celtic guitarists Robin Bullock and William Coulter). She has also performed with Bay Area musicians Neal Hellman, Danny Carnahan, Libby Mc Laren and Robin Flower, harper Steve Coulter and guitarist Bruce Abrams.

Choral Work
Mary is known for her ability to arrange traditional Irish material chorally. In 2007 she founded a sacred Gaelic Choir Mary Mc Laughlin’s Cór Ainglí in Santa Cruz, N. California. For seven years Mary soloed with the 20+ piece choir conducted by Kathleen Loveless and accompanied by a band of Celtic musicans.

Teaching and Learning
Mary initially completed a BA and graduate teaching certificate at London University and has taught in schools, colleges and privately, in the UK, USA, Canada and Ireland.

Having initially trained in vocal technique in England with the acclaimed vocal teacher Frankie Armstrong, Mary formalized her training in 1995 by acquiring a Certificate of Vocal Music Education from Trinity College London. She studied sean-nós (old-style) singing with renowned traditional Irish singer Gearoidín Breathnach, from the Donegal Gaeltacht, over twenty years, moving backwards and forwards across the Atlantic! She has taught Irish singing extensively throughout the Bay Area, California, where she had her own hedge school. She was also a popular guest teacher at various festivals and music camps, including the sean-nós weekends in Olympia WA and Phoenix Arizona in 2014.

In 2010 she was awarded an MA in Ritual Chant and Song at Limerick University where she specialised in the fairy / mythological songs of Ireland as well as Latin plainchant and the Irish tradition of Keening. She spent a further year taking a Sound Healing and Therapy course in San Francisco in 2013. In September 2014 she returned to Ireland to complete her doctoral studies at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick, on the banks of the Shannon River. During the next four years she was immersed in both teaching at the University and researching/writing her PhD in Traditional Irish Song Studies. The title was Songs Between Worlds: Enchantment and Entrapment in the Irish Otherworld Song Tradition.

On re-entering the non-academic world in 2018 she spent two years studying shamanism at the Irish School of Shamanic Studies in Co. Mayo. Her current teaching and workshops reflect strands of all the areas of learning in which she has
immersed herself for the last decade. She has dedicated herself to looking at Irish song and traditions from many angles and is delighted to be able to pass on whatever knowledge she has acquired over the years to students in workshops, classes and private lessons.

Recording
She has released four solo albums and two teaching books, sang the theme song for the PBS special about the Titanic, 'Lost Liners', contributed to 13 compilation albums on major labels and had two albums, ‘A Gaelic Christmas’ and “Sacred Days, Mythic Ways’ nominated for the international JPF Indie awards.

Her biggest recording successes were as the singer leading off the hugely popular Narada / EMI hit ‘Celtic Voices’ (1995) where she sang three songs including ‘Sealwoman’ which she composed over a traditional Scottish chant, and ‘Celtic Requiem’ (Windham Hill / Sony - 1998) on which she collaborated with William Coulter. The songs on ‘Celtic Voices’ had originally been recorded for the ‘Daughter of Lir’ album (1991/93/98), by the internationally acclaimed Jon Jacobs, famous for his work with Paul McCartney, the Divine Comedy and many others.

Mary is currently planning her next recording adventure which will probably be attached to the book she is now writing on the Keen and the World of Faerie.