A SINGER with a truly unique voice and musical style recently released an album that gives a nod to summers spent on an island off Glengarriff.
There were, in fact, quite a lot of strong childhood influences that went into the mix and the making of Westbound, Clementine Lovell’s new album.
‘Our childhood summers were spent in Ireland,’ the folk singer told The Southern Star. ‘My paternal grandfather, the radio astronomer Bernard Lovell, bought a small island there in the 1960s as a place to find peace and recuperation.
‘It was previously used to graze cattle in the summer, and it was bare apart from gorse, heather and sally bushes. But he planted many species of trees and shrubs, and the family built a house there.’
Clementine described how the island, which is located off Zetland Pier, still has a magical energy and is ‘the place where I can go back to the core of myself.
‘A lot of my music is inspired by Glengarriff,’ she added. ‘It runs very deep.’
Naturally, Clementine’s parents took her to pub sessions on the mainland. ‘That’s where,’ she admits, ‘I became hooked on Irish music, the tunes weaving around my brain, an instant feeling of happiness and that landscape, a sense of coming home.
‘There was a couple who played music at Bernard Harrington’s pub in Glengarriff every night, John and Rose.
‘John had a wonderful voice and presence, and an ability to hold a space for other musicians.
‘He and Rose encouraged me to sing and play. Rose plays accordion and, inspired by her, I begged to have one for my 10th birthday.
‘I began to teach myself, and Nancy Harrington would keep us there until the early hours playing the old Irish songs to her friends.’
Clementine wrote a track called John Barnett. She performed it at a celebration of John’s life that was held in Bernard Harrington’s Maple Leaf Bar in Glengarriff in April 2024.
‘It was an emotional night,’ she said. ‘Many of us gathered to share memories and songs, and there was a framed photograph of John on the table amongst the pints of Guinness.’
That same night, Clementine performed another song, Here A Moment, which recalled the death of three men who died after their boat caught fire in Adrigole Harbour in 2010.
‘Four friends went out in a boat and disaster struck, only one returned and that survivor happened to be standing at the bar as I played,’ said the singer.
‘I met him afterwards and cried. He said that since the accident he really has tried to live each day as if it were his last, to be in the moment.’
As a child, Clementine said her mother used to sing The Ballad of Lord Thomas and Fair Eleanor as their bedtime lullaby. Today, she said, epic and grisly folk ballads are the songs to which her three small sons fall asleep.
‘The English folk sound is woven into my Herefordshire childhood. Later, Led Zeppelin became entwined with waterfall pools and walks in the Black Mountains.
‘My parents’ vinyl collections – Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Steeleye Span, the Albion Band, Eric Clapton, Pink Floyd, Leonard Cohen, Kris Kristofferson, John Mayall, Pentangle, and Fairport Convention to name just a few – were the soundtrack to our childhood, not just the music, but the crackle of the record player and the album covers so vivid in my memory.’
After a run of sell-out shows, the official launch of Westbound took place in London. But there was a celebratory launch in Glengarriff too.
Clementine told The Southern Star she is hoping to round out her summer and go westbound to perform again in Glengarriff in September.
