Seans christmas by the hearth

AS you listen to the title track you can, in your mind’s eve, visualise a young child named Sean crunching through the snow in his best Sunday shoes on a Christmas night long ago until he, in an excited state, arrives at his aunts Sarah and Rita Keane’s thatched house in Caherlistrane where musicians from near and far are celebrating Christmas by the hearth.

On his latest album, Christmas by the Hearth, and on his current concert tour of the same name, Sean tries to recreate the atmosphere, the good humour, good music, friendliness and good cheer that must have emanated from such a session at the home of one of the foremost families of Folk music in Ireland during so many of the Christmases in the past.

Several of the songs have been written by Sean in collaboration with his manager Johnny B Broderick and his brother Iggy Broderick who are from a South Galway family also steeped in Traditional music. The three have got together to write the title track of this album.

To paraphrase words from the title song, the mother referred to in the song said a family singing together was like praying together and of course Sean was infused with that love of music and song in his family from his earliest childhood, as were the Broderick boys.

Apart from taking the listener back in time to an era when songs were sung and music was played in front of open fires, and the dancers often knocked sparks off the hearthstones as they danced to the music, this album also meanders into a beautiful song about a love affair that began and ended on a train that was snowbound in a place called Poughkeepsie on its way to Albany in the State of New York.