TURAS CUMADÓIR
As the title implies Turas Cumadóir (Songwriter’s Journey) is my third solo album and reflects my ongoing journey as a writer, musician and singer. As an independent songwriter without a big record company or rich patron behind me, I decided to try the crowd-funding route to raise the necessary money to make Turas Cumadóir. I have to admit I was worried that I would never be able to do it but I was overwhelmed by the generous response from fans and followers which meant I had met the target well before the end date of the fundraising campaign. Inspired by their support, I tried to make an album that was worthy of the faith they have shown in me and my music and I think Turas Cumadóir achieves that.

LET ME FLY
All of my albums have been “solo” albums in the true sense of the word. I want listeners to my albums to hear the songs as intimate, immediate and direct communication from me to them. Resisting the trend towards “guru” producers and loads of session musicians, I may have been mad, but I took i it upon myself not only to write but also to fully arrange, perform and record all the instrumentation, vocals, drums, harmonies for Let Me Fly. What that did mean is that the completion of Let Me Fly required all of my time over quite a long period. It made for some very long but wonderfully creative days in the studio over nearly a year but to me it was worth it and I hope listeners to the album think so too.

SING AWAY THE SADNESS
Sing Away The Sadness is my first album and its title very much reflects my philosophy on life. If things aren’t going so well, if times are troubled then my approach is always to sing or write my way through it, let the music lift me, let it do its thing. This album contains some of my most requested songs such as Back To The Tribe, Stand Up And Be Counted, the playful No One Else, love song The Faintest Touch and of course my setting of WB Yeats wonderful poem He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven. I always know I will be happy as long as I can write, play and sing my songs.

THE ONES WE ALWAYS SING / THE ONES WE ALWAYS SING AGAIN
It was an absolute joy to make the two albums The Ones We Always Sing and The Ones We Always Sing Again with my nephew and brilliant musician and singer Carey Ryan. The albums are exactly what it “says on the tin” in that they are our versions of the most popular and favourite Irish traditional and folk songs that Carey and I always sing with our family and friends whenever we get together. As someone once said every Ryan family occasion at some stage or another will inevitably end up in a session and a sing-song! When we started to record we intended only making one album but there were so many great songs that we wanted to do that we ended up making two albums!