A Singer, a songwriter, an actress, a theatre maker and fine storyteller, Catherine Ireton will bring her latest work to The Belltable in September. She is excited to premier her new show in her hometown of Limerick.
Since leaving Limerick to study art at UCC, the Castletroy girl has toured the world with Scottish band Belle and Sebastian. Her theatre shows have toured all over the UK and Seoul, Hong Kong, Macau and Shanghai.
She has recorded seven albums and EPs and much of her recent work is produced by Farnham Maltings.
Catherine’s new show is ‘For all the fires not yet lit’. It is a story of courage and explores what kind of courage it takes to just do the most mundane things in life. Catherine talked about it to Limerick Post this week.
“Today we are constantly told what to be fearful of – I wanted an antidote to that.”
“I wanted to examine the notion of quiet courage – not the hero, not the person who rescues the baby from the burning building – the person who doesn’t recognise their own strengths in themselves – a conversation that you are dreading – a driving test – those everyday things.”
The story is told through dialogue and song. And Catherine is a gifted and natural storyteller as she brings us into the world of the character, Claire.
“She is a very timid woman. I tell her story. She wakes the morning after her engagement party and has this awful sense of dread.”
Bride-to-be Claire is not going to make a speech at the wedding. She’s not that type of person and none of her friends believe she would have the courage to speak in public.
Fighting through her hangover, Claire goes out to the shop to get some milk. She sees a bus and just gets on the bus and goes on a 24 hour odyssey discovering what she is capable of and ends up in scrapes and adventures.
“It is about finding what your true courage is. I want to recognise the smallness of all our battles in the grand scheme of things.”
Catherine’s piece is a solo performance of songs and heart exploring how everyday acts of courage can be as contagious as fear.
She likes to examine one overall theme with every show. The show in Belltable premiering in September examines courage.
She is currently working on a piece based on landscapes and songs in the Burren in Clare and her previous show ‘In Good Hands’ looked at loneliness.
‘In Good Hands’ is based in a hair salon in County Clare and has been performed everywhere from Ennis to Shanghai. It still tours regularly. It is a very funny and interactive piece that is performed by Claire and her co-star in real hair dressing salons to intimate audiences.
“The ritual of a haircut is the same wherever you go. We can become very swallowed in our individual lives and lose intimacy as we get more digital. But a hair salon is a place where you just sit back and someone is washing your hair. You are listening to conversations around you. We are always going to need hair salons – right?”
As well as performing in hair salons, Claire has brought her music and stories to pop-up gigs, festivals and railway stations.
“I not much interested in performing for theatre people if I’m honest. I am much more interested in performing for people who don’t go the theatre. Doing shows in hair salons and places like that opens that up. It can be fun – it doesn’t have to be cerebral. In most of my work I just try have a lot of heart in it and have people leave feeling better about the world.
‘For all the fires not yet lit’ plays at the Belltable from Thursday September 28 to Saturday September 30.
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The Belle and Sebastian years
The Belle & Sebastian single ‘The White Collar Boy’ from 2006 featured Catherine Ireton on the front cover. The photo was taken by Stuart Murdoch, lead singer and songwriter for the band. Stuart’s 2009 side project ‘God Help The Girl’ was a story set to music that featured a group of female lead vocalists. The story revolved around a young girl called Eve who escapes from a mental health hospital and meets a young guitarist, down on his luck. Catherine Ireton was the voice of Eve and sang on the majority of tracks on the album. She toured with Murdoch extensively to promote the record. The film version featuring the songs from the record and a very young cast was eventually was released in 2014.
