Irish Times arts journalist Nadine O’Regan hosts this much anticipated event with singer Mary Coughlan, Barry Devlin (bass/Horslips), and Keith Donald (sax/Moving Hearts). Expect an entertaining, honest, and revealing conversation with three of the most iconic figures in contemporary Irish music about their professional successes, personal lives ‘on the road,’ and varied tales of addiction.
*Please note, due to unforeseen circumstances, Cait O’Riordan is no longer appearing as part of this event.
Biographies
Mary Coughlan
Mary is Ireland’s greatest jazz and blues singer and “one of our most openly raw performers” (Hot Press) and in a 40-plus year career, about to enter its next, exciting stage.
Born in Shantalla, Galway city, Mary has created and produced some of the most uncompromising, wholly personal, and universal music by any Irish artist. While her roots are in jazz and blues – Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith are among her inspirations – pop, rock, folk, and chanson influences (Edith Piaf is also a touchstone) also ripple throughout her work.
It was in 1985, when Mary burst onto the Irish music scene with her debut album, Tired and Emotional. That album led to appearances on The Late Late Show, a hit single with ‘Delaney’s Gone Back On The Wine’, and tours of Britain, Germany, and Holland.
She followed that explosive release with Under The Influence (1987), Uncertain Pleasures (1990), and Sentimental Killer (1992), which firmly established her reputation as an unflinchingly honest, emotionally raw vocalist, never afraid to embrace the most difficult of life and love subject matters in her work. As The Irish News said, she “doesn’t just take her audiences to church with her music, she practically baptises them with her passion and pain”. It was the same in her 2009 autobiography, Bloody Mary, where she documented addiction problems, relationship troubles, familial abuse, career mismanagement, suicide attempts, and dark days spent confined to psychiatric wards.
Despite the difficulties she encountered, the music kept coming with Live In Galway (1996), After The Fall (1997), Mary Coughlan Sings Billie Holiday (2000), Long Honeymoon (2001), The House Of Ill Repute (2008) and a ‘best of’The Whole Affair (2012), and Live & Kicking (2017).
Mary is also no stranger to the big screen, having appeared in two films by acclaimed Irish director Neil Jordan – 1988’s High Spirits with Peter O Toole, Daryl Hannah, and Donal McCann, and 2005’s Breakfast on Pluto with Cillian Murphy and Stephen Rea.
More recently, theatre has become another stage for Mary’s talents. In 2019, her early life was dramatised in Woman Undone, a “profoundly moving, brave, and beautiful fusion of theatre, music, and dance” (Galway Advertiser), created by Mary and the award-winning Irish theatre company Brokentalkers, in collaboration with Icelandic composer Valgeir Sigurdsson, and movement director Eddie Kaye.
Now sober for 30 years, the mother of five and grandmother of six, reached new peaks as a performer and songwriter with her most recent album, 2020’s acclaimed Life Stories. By turns powerful, swaggering, sexy, harrowingly raw, and deeply honest, Life Stories runs the full gamut of both music and emotions, from cabaret (‘High Heel Boots’) to late night jazz balladry (‘Elbow Deep’, ‘No Jericho ) to some of the most exuberant pop oriented songs Mary has yet recorded (‘Forward Bound’, ‘Steps Forward’). Released via the artist’s own label, Hail Mary Records, it reached No 1 on iTunes and Amazon; garnered five star reviews and The Sunday Times Ireland said, “rarely has an album referenced a life so pointedly”, while The Daily Mail rightly wrote it was created by “a consummate talent at the top of her game”. To cap it all, in 2020, Mary was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the then Mayor of Galway, Mike Cubbard.
Never one to sit still, Mary is now planning her most ambitious project to date. While she has covered Billie Holiday, Joy Division, and The Blue Nile in the past, she intends to reimagine the album Peggy Lee made with the pioneering rock’n’roll songwriters Lieber and Stoller, composers of such songs as ‘Hound Dog’ and ‘Jailhouse Rock’. The album, Mirrors, described by Allmusic.com as “intelligent, evocative, understated, and mature”, explored themes of murder, madness, despair, longing, and the rise of Fascism in the USA. Mary has been eager to work on this project for many years, but it was during lockdown that the opportunity presented itself. This has led to further work with musicians and visual artists to create what will be an immersive, multimedia, experience. A brilliant and unique career milestone to mark her fifth decade in music.
Barry Devlin is one of Ireland’s most celebrated creative artists working as a musician, screenwriter and director.
Born in Ardboe, Co. Tyrone in 1946, Barry initially trained as a Columbian but left to study English at University College Dublin before joining a graphics company as a screenwriter. Within the advertising world he met up with fellow musicians to write and perform radio jingles and this was the spark that became the legendary Irish trad rock band Horslips. The group, formed in 1970, are regarded as “founding fathers of Celtic rock” and went on to inspire many local and international acts.
Although Horslips packed out both concert halls and ballrooms in the 1970s, they had limited commercial success outside Ireland. The band resumed activity between 2004 and 2012, playing a small number of shows and producing new releases, both live and studio. They played their final shows in August 2012.
After the breakup of Horslips, Devlin released the 1983 solo album Breaking Star Codes. In December 1985, he produced the single “Thank You Very Much, Mr. Eastwood” for comedian Dermot Morgan. Devlin has directed projects for the screen plus a number of U2 videos in the 1980s. He has also written for radio and screen, originating the radio detective drama Baldi; created episodes for the television series Ballykissangel and Darling Buds of May plus the screenplay for A Man of No Importance (1984). He also wrote five episodes of the television series My Mother and Other Strangers, which aired in 2016.
Horslips reunited from 2004 – 2006, and again from 2009 – 2019. In November 2025, the band celebrated the 50th anniversary re-issue of Drive The Cold Winter Away. The acoustic album was originally recorded and released in 1975 in Dublin’s Trend Studios, engineered by Fred Meijer and produced by the band.
Keith Donald’s career in music spans five decades and began with a recorder performance on BBC radio when he was ten. He is best known as the saxophonist with seminal Irish traditional band Moving Hearts, but his first love is jazz and he has never stopped playing live throughout his life.
Keith was born in Co. Derry in February 1945 and grew up in Belfast. His father was a banjo player in the 1920s and instilled in his two sons a passion for music. Keith fell in love with the sound of the clarinet and his school picked up the tab for his first instrument when he was twelve. It soon became clear that he had considerable natural musical talent and his mother bought him his first saxophone when he was fifteen, a Conn alto which he still has. In 1962 (aged seventeen) Keith played Mozart’s clarinet concerto with an orchestra and in the same year played the first Belfast Arts Festival with a jazz group, The Embankment Six. Unfortunately for Keith, The Beatles released their first single in 1962, heralding the advent of rock and roll in Belfast and consequently interest in jazz waned. Keith parked the clarinet, taught himself tenor sax and started playing commercial music.
Since then Keith has played with hundreds of artists, including, Noel Kelehan, Louis Stewart, Zoot Sims, Gerry Mulligan, Maire Breathnach, Ronnie Drew, Van Morrison and Vusi Mahlahsela. He has played recording sessions, advertising jingles and pit orchestra gigs, in addition to sold out auditorium shows, tiny jazz clubs and huge festivals. His musical career has taken him all over the world, from Johannesburg to New York and every major city in Europe. Keith also composes music for theatre, film and television including the saxophone soundtrack for Neil Jordan’s 1982 film Angel starring Stephen Rea. Keith was also part of the team that won a BAFTA award for United, a film which was conceived as a commentary on the divisive issue of parades in Northern Ireland politics. In addition he has composed music for BBC documentaries and the BBC film Great Journeys; co-composed the soundtrack for RTE/C4 film Summer Lightning, and written music for plays such as Frank McGuinness’ Carthaginians and Damian Gorman’s Sometimes.
After Moving Hearts ended, he was offered a new post in the Irish Arts Council, as Popular Music Officer, starting his final chapter as an arts administrator. This period also marked a serious decline in Donald’s alcoholism and after a drunken car crash, he finally attended an addiction support group meeting. His last alcohol drink was in 1991 and there the narrative ends.
In 2014 Keith wrote and performed a one-man play, NewBliss, which relates the story of his professional life, plus recounts the highs and lows of his six-decade long career, half of which was spent under the shadow of alcoholism. It is an insight into the life of a musician – from pit orchestra gigs to pay the bills, all the way through to sold out stadium tours.
Keith’s journey from addiction to redemption was also documented in his recently published memoir ‘Music & Mayhem’ – an acclaimed inspirational story, complete with both laughter and life lessons.
NOTE – Music & Mayhem will be on sale after the event and Keith will personally sign copies.
Nadine O’Regan is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, and podcaster. She is a staff writer with The Irish Times in the area of arts, features, and opinion, as well as travel editor for The Irish Times Magazine. In her work as a music and arts broadcaster, she has presented shows on RTÉ Radio 1, Phantom FM, and Today FM. From Skibbereen in Co. Cork, Nadine has an M.Phil. in Creative Writing from Trinity College Dublin. In 2023, her short story You was shortlisted for the RTÉ Short Story Competition in honour of Francis MacManus. She lives in Dublin with her husband Shane and son Oscar.
Nadine is looking forward to exploring the extraordinary lives of three of Ireland’s most iconic musical trailblazers and delving deep into the highs and lows of the music business. A special audience Q&A is included.
