{"id":521335,"date":"2026-06-06T06:44:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T06:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/521335\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T06:44:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T06:44:17","slug":"singer-songwriter-loah-i-like-praying-it-puts-you-in-a-humble-state-open-to-the-goodness-of-people-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/521335\/","title":{"rendered":"Singer-songwriter Loah: \u2018I like praying. It puts you in a humble state, open to the goodness of people\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Choices define a life. That\u2019s something singer-songwriter, presenter, actor and part-time pharmacist Loah thinks about a lot, because her career could go in so many different directions. <\/p>\n

\u201cWith this life and this job, anything can happen,\u201d she says. \u201cI often feel I\u2019m in the bubble of the ether, waiting for the next thing to appear, and I\u2019m just trying to follow what feels aligned in the moment, and trust that things work out, and it\u2019s not always easy. You have periods of, like, \u2018agh, what\u2019s going to happen?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Rain spatters the windowpane as she speaks. It\u2019s a cold summer\u2019s day. We\u2019re huddled by the fire in the front room bar of Connolly\u2019s of Leap in west Cork<\/a>, close to the rented home where Loah has lived with her husband Peter for the last year and a half. <\/p>\n

On stage Loah has an ethereal persona \u2013 calm, assured and stately, as fans will have seen from her hosting of The Heart of Saturday Night on RT\u00c9<\/a> television, or her recent performances at London\u2019s National Theatre in The Playboy of the Western World. In person she\u2019s gregarious and lively, snacking on an energy bar as we chat, with a ready laugh and an easy manner, gracefully willing to talk about the hard times as well as the good. <\/p>\n

She is excited to be here, because of what the interview signifies. This month, she is finally achieving her dream: releasing her debut album, a record delayed for reasons that have a lot to do with the not-so-small problem of trying to figure out who on earth you are in this life. And what it is you really want. <\/p>\n

Born in Kenya as Sallay-Matu Garnett (Loah is her stage name), where her parents were working as teachers, Loah spent her early childhood in Maynooth before moving with her family to west Africa when she was 12. \u201cThey said, \u2018you need to know where you\u2019re from, you can\u2019t grow up entirely in the West and just be oblivious\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n

So she and her siblings \u2013 two brothers and a younger sister \u2013 abandoned one kind of life, where she remembers enjoying long summer days playing with the neighbours\u2019 kids in an estate in Maynooth and practising the traditional music the family loved \u2013 \u201cI got my first violin at three\u201d \u2013 to board a flight first to Gambia for two years, and then to Sierra Leone, her father\u2019s home country. <\/p>\n

Attending a school in Gambia with students who were wealthier than her, she was teased about her accent and her skinniness, and took a long time to settle. Her parents were separating, but the family remained strong. She admires them. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Watch Loah reading One Art, by Elizabeth Bishop: \u2018The art of losing isn\u2019t hard to master\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents are such mentally tough people. My mom grew up in Crumlin in the \u201960s and \u201970s. She\u2019s a tough bird, and gentle and forgiving and fun. And my dad grew up in pre-war Sierra Leone, then lived through war, and he\u2019s a conservationist. He protects trees for a living, and he spends all his time with trees,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

\"LoahLoah studied pharmacy in Trinity College Dublin. Photograph: Clare Keogh <\/p>\n

Loah says she felt lucky as she was academic and got the points to study pharmacy at Trinity College Dublin<\/a>. She was also accepted to study jazz at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, but says: \u201cI didn\u2019t take it because I didn\u2019t have the money to go.\u201d <\/p>\n

When she began working as a pharmacist in Dublin, her love of music kept bubbling to the foreground. She started drip-feeding out singles and EPs as Loah, consumed with a newfound understanding that although pharmacy was part of her working life \u2013 \u201cI didn\u2019t want to throw it down the tube\u201d \u2013 a career in music and the arts mattered to her. <\/p>\n

A song she had co-written, Someone New, with a pre-fame Hozier<\/a>, who was her boyfriend in college, became a hit on his 2014 debut album. She was picked to play Mary Magdalene in the Barbican\u2019s 2019 production of Jesus Christ Superstar. In 2020, she became part of the Women in Harmony collective, releasing a cover of Dreams, The Cranberries classic, with proceeds going to victims of domestic violence. She played the role of Evelyn in Lenny Abrahamson\u2019s take on Sally Rooney\u2019s Conversations with Friends in 2022. <\/p>\n

Things in music happened slower than she would like. \u201cI\u2019m not the fastest musician. I need a lot of time and encouragement,\u201d she says. She also didn\u2019t have management for a long time. \u201cI was on my own for many years. I didn\u2019t tour. I didn\u2019t feel like I could organise it. Sometimes, you think, \u2018oh that\u2019s when I should have schlepped around Europe in someone\u2019s van\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

This month her debut album \u2013 full of soft vocals, delicate melodies and drowsily languorous, enveloping music \u2013 will be released more than a decade after she first became known as a solo artist to the Irish public, and after a five-year creative process. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is hugely vulnerable,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s my first go.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Loah'sLoah’s album looks at the issues facing ‘frozen generation’. Photograph: Clare Keogh <\/p>\n

Materia Medica \u2013 the album title comes from an ancient pharmacology textbook about healing plants \u2013 catalogues the experiences of Isobel, who is a girl a lot like Loah was. \u201cPartying with her friends and they all look great, but inside they\u2019re kind of [she mimics someone weeping]. There\u2019s this underlying nudging of like: \u2018Where\u2019s it going to land?\u2019 \u2018Where\u2019s our safety going to come from?\u2019 She\u2019s sort of me, there\u2019s elements, and then there\u2019s also this hyper-fantastical element.\u201d <\/p>\n

The album reflects, Loah says, how she feels about being part of a \u201cfrozen generation\u201d. What\u2019s that? \u201cWe have so much fun now \u2013 people do J1s, travel to Asia, we have the freedom to choose different paths, but some of our basics, the weighty stuff isn\u2019t always in place.\u201d<\/p>\n

She means, she says, things like home-ownership, or taking big leaps in life, like getting married or having children. <\/p>\n

We\u2019re meeting in the dark, storied bar of Connolly\u2019s for a reason: It\u2019s an auspicious location for Loah. It\u2019s where she had her first date with her husband Peter, who is from west Cork. It\u2019s also where they celebrated their wedding on a warm autumn day in 2024, with more than 200 friends, family and musicians, having walked over from the nearby St Mary\u2019s Church. <\/p>\n

\u201cLisa Hannigan sang me up the aisle,\u201d she says. \u201cAve Maria. With Colm Mac Con Iomaire on violin. It was really beautiful. The church is quite big so everyone had space, and the choir were able to sing. It was the Discovery Gospel Choir, which I used to be part of. <\/p>\n

\u201cThen we all tumbled into Connolly\u2019s \u2013 it was rammed \u2013 and it was just like crazy dancing. One of my friends, Stephanie Dufresne, who was one of my bridesmaids, is a choreographer, so she choreographed a flash-mob dance routine. It was a proper hooley.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018I never needed convincing about whether or not I believe in God\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Loah<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The bar is technically closed this early in the afternoon, but owner Sam McNicholl has the fire roaring in the grate and hot tea at the ready for us. Loah is part of the community here now, although she often heads up to Dublin for part-time work as a pharmacist, or to visit her mother in Kildare.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Loss of manual jobs could be driving toxic masculinity, says StingOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

She looks casual and striking in a pale pink fleece and cosy, wide-legged trousers, with her hair scraped back into a red scrunchie. She never refuses a question, although she sometimes sidesteps details deftly. (On the subject of her age, she is in her late 30s, but her agent has warned her not to be specific, as her playing age is younger than her actual age. As for her husband Peter, she laughs when I ask about him. \u201cHe\u2019s like: \u2018Do not involve me in your madness\u2019.\u201d)<\/p>\n

We walk around the famous venue, as McNicholl points to gig photographs sellotaped to the top of the bar and peeling posters of artists stuck over one another on the walls in a fascinating, higgledy piggledy collage; everyone from David Gray to turbo-folk group Big Bag of Sticks to The Handsome Family and The Shanks. <\/p>\n

Loah will launch her album in the pub on June 13th. It\u2019s also where they held a funeral ceremony for the musician Eoin French of Talos, who worked with Loah on the album \u2013 featuring on the song Intimacy \u2013 and who died aged 36 of cancer in the summer of 2024. \u201cOur beautiful, beloved Eoin, whose picture is everywhere,\u201d she says. \u201cWe waked him on the stage and had loads of songs. He was an incredible person. So gifted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Connolly\u2019s holds a kind of energy that you can feel as soon as you walk in the door. There\u2019s a charge to the place. For Loah, the venue represents an important blending of cultures. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen God Knows played here,\u201d Loah says, referencing her friend, the Zimbabwe-born, Shannon-raised, Limerick-based rapper, \u201che saw a poster of a band his dad knew in Zimbabwe. Like, how amazing is that? He was freaking out, taking pictures of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LoahLoah says Connolly’s of Leap is a special place. Photograph: Clare Keogh <\/p>\n

Growing up in Ireland and Sierra Leone as a person of mixed heritage, Loah learned to think \u201cfrom an Irish perspective and an external perspective\u201d. \u201cWe have this phrase in Sierra Leone called \u2018Two Sims\u2019. There are certain phones that can fit two sim cards, right? People who have parents who are from different backgrounds, they\u2019re nicknamed \u2018Two Sims\u2019 because it\u2019s like you\u2019ve got two sim cards, which is so cute. So you have 353 and 232.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loah has had direct experiences of racism in her life. \u201cOh yeah, without a doubt. People on the streets and stuff. Not for a long time thankfully,\u201d she says. \u201cColourism is also a real thing: the darker or more visibly foreign you are, the harder it can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

She finds life in a rural setting easier than an urban one, because people know one another, and bonds are more easily fostered. \u201cIn rural communities, where people need each other, you have to really be part of the community, and that\u2019s a very different mental space to be in than in an urban community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recently, former taoiseach Bertie Ahern was recorded in a video shared on social media<\/a> telling a potential voter that \u201cthe ones I worry about are the Africans\u201d, and saying he has concerns about the level of immigration. Loah found the comments \u201cshocking but not surprising\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really sad, because you think about our history as Irish people and how we have been the subject of those conversations had by other powerful people who nonchalantly called us all kinds of things,\u201d she says. \u201cYou wish that people could open their aura of understanding and see it from other sides. Reality: we construct it ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her interpretation of the bigger picture right now in Ireland is generous. \u201cFundamentally, in some ways, it\u2019s bigger than the idea of ethnic groups. It\u2019s more about economics. People are really struggling right now in different parts of the country. The housing crisis: when people are feeling pressured like that, and feel a direct threat to their survival, it can bypass the more generous aspect of any group, and we can become as humans vulnerable to populism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LoahLoah has made a home in west Cork and will launch her debut album there in Connolly’s of Leap. Photograph: Clare Keogh <\/p>\n

She\u2019s less vocal on the subject of ethnicity than she used to be. \u201cI used to talk a lot about this,\u201d she says. \u201cI used to feel like I was responsible for explaining it, or myself and my background, to help people understand why people like me exist. It\u2019s really not that complicated. And then I got to the point a few years ago where I was like, I just don\u2019t know if the kind of talking that I\u2019ve been doing has helped. People learn from conversation but if people aren\u2019t willing to listen, that\u2019s a difficult place to be. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo I thought, okay, I make art, I make music, I operate in film and television. Sometimes just being present and doing the thing you do is the statement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loah has floated easily in recent years into presenting work for RT\u00c9, hosting The Heart of Saturday Night, a six-part TV music series with singer Una Healy in 2021. A television presenter rookie, she was a notably assured presence on screen, interviewing bands with a low-key ease that counterbalanced the more ebullient Healy. <\/p>\n

She subsequently took on occasional presenting duties on RT\u00c9 Radio 1, plucking gems from Ireland and beyond for the three-hour playlist on Late Date, operating the desk and reading out texts from listeners into the wee hours. \u201cWith a gig you\u2019re getting real-time feedback about how things are going down, and you can swerve if you need to, but when you\u2019re on your own in the studio, it\u2019s all you, baby girl,\u201d she says with a laugh. <\/p>\n

She and Hozier aren\u2019t in contact any more \u2013 \u201cI\u2019ve no idea what he\u2019s up to,\u201d she says \u2013 but she has given his latest record a spin on the radio. \u201cI played Unreal Unearth because it\u2019s wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of the roles she has inhabited have been enjoyable, but it\u2019s obvious from talking to her over a couple of hours that they\u2019ve brought some frustration, too: she\u2019s frequently been close to music, but not the one releasing it. \u201cI craved the creative process for myself,\u201d she says. \u201cMusic is really my first love.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018I like praying. It puts you in a humble state, open to the goodness of things and the goodness of people\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Loah<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

During Covid, she got a \u20ac20,000 Arts Council bursary, which helped massively in the making of the album. \u201cIt was life-changing, it actually made the album happen. I had 12 people involved. I could bring people in and pay them properly. And not ask for favours. After a while it becomes disrespectful even if they\u2019re your friends. In the application, I remember imploring: \u2018Please.\u2019 I got it and I remember just crying, \u2018oh my God, it\u2019s going to happen now\u2019. I was able to work on it and be as ambitious as I wanted to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trad influences, samples from 16th century lute music, Afrobeats and swishy rhythms all mingle on the record. The kora, the ancient African harp, features prominently, played by a Gambian musician Suntou Susso. \u201cThe first time I heard him play, I burst into tears,\u201d she says. \u201cHe\u2019s become a friend. And Alannah Thornburgh is on it as well. She\u2019s an amazing harpist and really creative in terms of how she treats the tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019s happy with the album, but her perfectionist tendencies emerge as she talks about it. \u201cThere\u2019s such a funny process with creativity. You love it, you hate it, you love it, you hate it.\u201d She\u2019s deeply aware the industry is a challenging place. No matter how much attention an album gets, the music model is broken. She knows if she tours, she is likely to lose money. <\/p>\n

When she has down days, as she sometimes has, she finds a kind of peace in the \u201cweights\u201d she has located for herself, from the quotidian to the mystical. <\/p>\n

\"LoahLoah has hosted The Heart of Saturday Night on RT\u00c9. Photograph:
\nClare Keogh <\/p>\n

\u201cExtra hugs from my husband,\u201d she says. She does yoga (\u201cI nearly became a teacher\u201d), and she has embraced prayer. \u201cI\u2019ve always been spiritual, even as a child,\u201d she says. \u201cMaybe in 2018, getting back to millennial culture, I felt very unmoored and I realised at some point: I wonder what was in Christianity for all my ancestors? With the modern atheist movement, there is an underlying attitude that religious people are a little bit dim, and I can\u2019t buy that idea. So I did go on a deep dive. <\/p>\n

\u201cHaving spoken with more Christians over the years, it\u2019s so interesting how much of it is wrestling with the detail that is challenging. I never needed convincing about whether or not I believe in God. I just don\u2019t have a problem with that. Scientific study, if anything, strengthens that: the fine intelligence of the world is incredible.\u201d She laughs. \u201cI\u2019m very much a hippie science Christian who\u2019s like, \u2018wow dude, the crystallised structure of carbon is so cool: there must be a god\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like praying. It puts you in a humble state, open to the goodness of things and the goodness of people. It gives you a more open-heart setting. You\u2019re always curious about where the love might be in a situation, where the pain is, and it really takes into account human suffering.\u201d <\/p>\n

And, she adds, she also finds sustenance in phoning her no-nonsense mother in Kildare, who reminds her of what\u2019s important. \u201cYou can\u2019t let difficult situations define how you approach life,\u201d she says. \u201cThe world is big and you deserve to be part of it. You have to grab it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so much life to be lived.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loah\u2019s debut album Materia Medica is out now. She plays The Sugar Club in Dublin on Friday, June 12th, and Connolly\u2019s of Leap on Saturday, June 13th. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Choices define a life. That\u2019s something singer-songwriter, presenter, actor and part-time pharmacist Loah thinks about a lot, because…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[268],"tags":[15526,434,1877,18,117,8752,19,17,123319,361,7406,22676],"class_list":["post-521335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-bertie-ahern","tag-celebrities","tag-cork","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-housing-crisis","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-lenny-abrahamson","tag-magazine","tag-sally-rooney","tag-west-cork"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116701814627531140","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}