Imelda May conjures cosmic connection at Brigid festival 

The singer remembered her early life in the Liberties through poem and song, in a stunning and vulnerable gig in Kildare.

As part of this year’s Spirit of Brigid event, a sold-out Moat Theatre in Kildare hosted a night of women artists delivering performances of empowerment and vulnerability.

Rachael Lavelle, Lemoncello, Una Healy, Sabina Higgins, Maria Doyle Kennedy and Imelda May honoured Brigid’s Day by offering the audience honesty, storytelling and female empowerment.  

Nothing Compares: A Celebration of Irish Women Artists was sponsored by Hot Press in collaboration with Kildare County Council.

Last on the event lineup was May, who was born and raised in Dublin’s Liberties – where, as she has often remarked, she was blessed with an abundance of female role models.  

Closing the concert at the Moat, she took the stage draped in a Brigid-esque shawl, telling the crowd of its healing powers according to her late mother. With an air of cosmic energy the singer also remarked, “I really felt [Brigid] here tonight.”

Her presence commanded the sold-out Moat Theatre as she darted from poetry to song throughout her set, joined by her long-time guitarist Oliver Darling. 

A particularly visceral moment, soaked in Liberties memories, was when she performed her poem, ‘Mammy’s Dying’. 

This came after some trepidation, as she worried that “maybe this is too sad”. May’s mother Madge died in 2021.

However, in keeping with the vulnerable theme of the night, she allowed us in on this intimate early memory with her mother, her most formative female role model.  

Published in her poetry collection A Lick and A Promise, released in 2021, it is a heartfelt piece remembering early moments, following her mother around the Liberties: “and then I’m 10/and I’m straining to spot her shopping/as the nuns march us up Meath street/for confessions of nothing.” 

May also spoke about the artist behind the event’s moniker, Sinead O’Connor, as she chose to perform her 1997 release ‘This Is To Mother You’.  

The event was hosted by TV personality and a lifelong pal of May’s, Laura Whitmore. When it came to introducing May, she warned the crowd that with Imelda’s spontaneous nature, no one could be sure what the performance would entail.  

Earlier in the evening, a captivating spoken-word performance was delivered by Sabina Higgins – including a speech calling for peace in Palestine, as she yelled for “Ceasefire now!” The activist and wife of President Michael D. Higgins went on to perform the poem ‘Ceasefire’ by Michael Longley, who had died a week earlier.  

Kildare’s Spirit of Brigid Festival also included a screening of the award-winning film Herself, followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Claire Dunne. And the Kildare County Council opened its courtyard for the free Brigid’s Day Eve Meet which saw a performance by Kyla Belle.

From children running around adorned in face paint, to mothers and daughters cradled one another through lumps in their throat at the star-studded Nothing Compares gig, it was certainly a Spirit of Brigid Festival to remember.