Aside from the obvious – the great albums, the thriving live scene – one of the best things about the folk music coming out of Dublin right now is its variety. Its artists display an admirable willingness to change and to embrace new forms: experimentation is the order of the day for groups like Landless, OXN and Lankum, all of whom have, to some extent, embraced drones or discordance. But for all the longform heaviness, all the avant-garde leanings, these groups have always acknowledged the importance of traditional Irish song, and there is still room under the umbrella for artists whose output is recognisably of that tradition. Foremost amongst those performers is Macdara Yeates. Yeates was there at the scene’s inception in 2012, one of the founders of The Night Before Larry Got Stretched, the singing session in Dublin pub The Cobblestone where many of those great acts first came together.
Yeates is a powerful singer of old songs. A cursory listen to the first few bars of Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye, the opening track of his 2024 debut Traditional Singing from Dublin, will tell you that. But, contrary to that album’s title, Yeates is not a strict traditionalist. Rather than singing familiar songs in familiar ways, he unearths little-known relics of Dublin’s musical history and uses unusual instrumentation or arrangements to bring out the pathos, humour and drama that is inherent in those songs. On his second album, Mudlark Ballads, these arrangements are more confident than before: still sparse, but now more varied. His ability to capture the mood of a song is second to none. Witness Matt Hyland, one of the most well-known songs here. As the song’s narrative grows in moral complexity, the minimal guitar (which at first was as slow and repetitive as a death knell) allows itself increasingly pretty embellishments. A background drone grows with the tension of the song, and then drops out completely for the beginning of the song’s cathartic and hopeful final voice. It’s the perfect example of how to use music to tell a story, and Yeates, as becomes increasingly evident, is a master storyteller.
Among the more unusual songs here is De Kilmainham Minit. It is the first commercially recorded version of an old Dublin street song, and tells the story of an execution with ripe and evocative vocabulary, bolstered by lashes of percussion you can almost physically feel and a comically sinister kazoo solo. Another old song never previously recorded is De May Bush, a violently celebratory song that proves May Day traditions are not just the preserve of quaint English villages. The metallic strums of guitar move always forward, and the song has an inexorable kind of energy, like one of those mad drunken nights when you know something’s going to happen but you don’t know if it’s going to be good or bad. Hiring Time has a slower pace, but its percussive thump has a similar sense of inevitability.
With the aid of producer Daniel Fox (of Gilla Band fame), Yeates creates a sound located firmly in the streets and social spaces of Dublin. Opening track The Lucan Dairy, which is sung unaccompanied, has a distinctly plein-air feel to it, and many of these songs have the feel of urban landscape paintings, albeit ones rooted in a minimal aesthetic and a distinctly lo-fi style. Stands a Lady seems like it was recorded in the midst of a largely unheeding city: people going about their day, unaware that they are forming the background of a quick but expertly executed musical sketch.
Yeates’ evident love of storytelling is indulged in Alexander, where the narrator conjures up epic tales of the past in order to win his true love’s heart. He sings it with a knowing wink, well aware of the power of tall tales and exaggeration, but also with genuine tenderness. The a cappella Mrs Smyly, by contrast, shows a more aggressive (and more political) strain of humour, satirising the phenomenon of souperism which was prevalent in the Great Famine. ‘Tis Whiskey I Adore closes out the album: a surprisingly stately melody swathed in long harmonium notes. Like all of the songs on Mudlark Ballads, it is carried by Yeates’ baritone, which is rich and forceful even at its most unassuming. He has a rare knack: the ability to let his songs carry his voice in the right direction every time. It means that emotion flows from every note with apparently little effort. These songs, which at times seem like they were rescued from the dirty streets, are valuable treasures in his hands.
Mudlark Ballads (September 4th, 2026) SilkOnIt Records
ALBUM LAUNCH TOUR
Sep 18-20 – Durham Folk Festival, Durham
Oct 9 – The Róisín Dubh, Galway
Oct 11 – DeBarra’s Folk Club, Clonakilty
Oct 14 – Oh Yeah! Centre, Belfast
Oct 18 – Coughlan’s, Cork
Oct 22 – Sandino’s, Derry
Nov 1 – The Sugar Club, Dublin
Nov 4 – Cecil Sharp House, London
Nov 7 – Glossop Labour Club, Glossop
Nov 8 – Red Deer Folk Club @ Zapato, Marsden
Dec 1 – Kitchen Garden Café, Birmingham
Dec 2 – Samuel Worth Chapel, Sheffield
Dec 10 – Irish Cultural Centre Hammersmith, London