In 2014 I was driving when a news story came on the radio about the Bon Secours mother and baby home in Tuam where it was alleged there was an unmarked grave filled with the bodies of children. My jaw dropped in horror. A local historian had discovered that 800 babies and children had died

I spent the last week of July in a windowless room listening. This was way more fun than it sounds! I was attending the John Hewitt International Summer School at the Market Place Theatre in Armagh: Six days of poetry readings, political panel discussions, lectures, Q & As with novelists, music, theatre, workshops and a

If you’ve been coming to my gigs you’ve heard me talking about my planned Trying To Be Brave EP for a while. The songs have been written and arranged and finally this week I got into the studio to start recording. The EP is going to feature four songs themed around ideas of bravery and

There’s so much talent at the Belfast Nashville Festival it is difficult to single out particular song writers or performers. In fact I suggest you just go to the festival next year and hear all the acts yourself! But for what it’s worth, these are my picks of the 2016 Festival. Sonia Leigh performed three

The Belfast Nashville Festival Song Writing Convention is a unique and wonderful weekend long masterclass in song writing with some of Nashville’s hit songwriters. The tutors explored song writing the Nashville way, bringing in their own unique perspectives having written country and pop hits and collaborated with artists in a range of genres. They stressed

In this post I want to introduce you to one of my favourite music creators in the world, Australian Josh Pyke. Now on his 5th album, Josh is an incredibly prolific and consistent songwriter, arranger, singer and musician. I discovered his music when I lived in Australia and have all his albums and EPs (thanks

This year I have set myself a challenge: to write a Christmas song. This is harder than I’d thought, especially to come up with something that’s musically and lyrically original. I’m still working on it, but in the meantime I thought I’d share with you some of my favourite Christmas songs. This is me singing

At the start of 2015 I made a decision that this would be the year I played Cathy in “The Last Five Years”. It’s hard to believe that it’s all over, and that we actually did it on Friday 11th and Saturday 12th September at Belvoir Players Studio in Belfast! It was a new experience

I have never worked on a musical quite like The Last Five Years before. When I did the likes of Sister Act the rehearsal room was often full of people, lining the walls waiting for their moment. It was large and noisy and busy. By contrast, in rehearsals for The Last Five Years there have

On 11 and 12th September 2015 I’ll be starring as Cathy in The Last Five Years. This is a real dream come true for me and I’d like to share with you what drew me to the show and give you a peek behind the scenes of the production process so far. I was looking