Track Listing 1. Sanctuary 2. Síos Faoi Braoch Loch Aileann 3. Generous Lover 4. Kiss The Moon 5. Barbara Allen 6. Cúmha ( A Parting Sorrow) 7. Wild Mountain Side 8. Caoine Sheáin Mhic Searraigh 9. Petticoat Loose 10. Sisters of Mercy 11. Lumé Lumé Click on underscored titles to hear MP3 sound samples.

We are delighted to announce the release of this mighty CD.

MARY McPARTLAN
With Mairtin O'Connor, Frankie Gavin, Cathal Heyden, Gerry (Banjo) O'Connor, Johnny (Ringo) McDonagh and many more
Produced by Seamie O'Dowd.
Petticoat Loose
MCPRCD002

Mary McPartlan follows her multi award winning release of 2004, The Holland Handkerchief (Mojo Folk Album of 2004, Meteor nominated) with another blockbuster release, Petticoat Loose.

Mary McPartlan's second CD, entitled Petticoat Loose, will be officially launched on February 21, 2008 at 8.30pm in the Liberty Hall Theatre, Dublin. Mary will announce details of her upcoming Petticoat Loose tour shortly.

The new album from Mary Mc Partlan entitled 'Petticoat Loose' represents her association with many high profile artists in the traditional music world and her lifelong friendship with the poet and playwright Vincent Woods. With the assistance of an Arts Council Deis award, Mary pursued the project which culminated in a new body of work which includes six new pieces of music. Three songs were written by Vincent Woods and set to music by Mairtín O'Connor including the title track 'Petticoat Loose'. Two old Irish pieces originating from her native Drumkeerin were set to music by Brendan O'Regan and a new song in the Irish language from Connemara, music and lyrics by Padraig Ó hAoláin, translated by Tim Dennehy.

The CD represents her close association with the NUI Galway 'Orbsen' choir and the Romanian string quartet in residence in NUI Galway, ConTempo. The crafting, development and recording of all the material comes from her long association with the multi-instrumentalist and producer Seamie O'Dowd. Many of the tracks on the CD are deeply personal in their lyrics and are autobiographical, representing her life to the present day in their poetic and political expression.

Artists appearing on Mary's CD include Mairtín O'Connor, Brendan O'Regan, Gary O'Briain, Frankie Gavin, Cathal Hayden, Rick Epping, Eddie Lynch, Johnny 'Ringo' McDonagh to name but a few. The impeccable backing vocals came from Ruth Dillon, Bernie O'Mahony, Mary Staunton, Gemma and Laura McPartlan and her daughters Mairéad and Meabh Noonan.
The album was recorded and engineered in Kenny Ralph's Sunstreet studios in Tuam and is due for official release mid February 2008. There are thirteen tracks on the CD.

Copperplate is very proud to have this title on our roster and to help it achieve its full potential will be supporting this release with a full-scale promotional mail out to media and retail.

Also available from Copperplate by Mary McPartlan: The Holland Handkerchief

Press Reviews


Froots May 08

Four years on, McPartlan's debut album The Holland Handkerchief retains such a fierce grip on my heart - it's currently jockeying for a top 8 slot in my favourite 5000 albums of all time - that this tawdry follow-up hasn't got a hope in hell of comparing favourably.
As soon as she starts singing, however, the old superlatives stick their hands up in the air, impatiently begging to be launched onto the page. Ireland's greatest singer since Delores Keane in her pomp, Mary still has that extraordinary gift of delivering a song - be it written by Shane MacGowan, Leonard Cohen or our old friend Mr Trad - with it's heart, soul and entire nerve center exposed. Listen to Mary sing - unaccompanied - one of the oldest known ballads in history, Barbara Allen - and it's as if the other 9000 versions never existed.

The lead writer here is poet and playwright Vincent Woods, with three songs set to music by the godlike Mairtin O'Connor - the best of them the formidable title track, a dark cinematic epic about the blessed and the damned, which also turns out to be a triumph for the fabled producer, Seamie O'Dowd. Alongside the savage bleakness that dominates much of the album, Cohen's Sisters of Mercy almost constitutes light relief but, as on The Holland Handkerchief, she prevails on some of Ireland's greatest musicians to hold our hands through it, Frankie Gavin, Rick Epping, Garry O'Briain, Ringo MacDonagh and Cathal Heyden among them, Romanian string quartet Con Tempo and Galway's Orbsen Choir add grace and fervour to Lumé Lumé and the old sea shanty Lowlands respectively.

The material carries deep personal significance to Mary, with Brendan Regan setting to music two Irish language songs from the Leitrim village of Drumkeernan where she was raised. Even more emotionally Padraig O'hAolain's Cúmha, gives a new slant on an old sore, emigration, in a story set in Connemara, where Mary now lives. Her brave take on Adrian Mitchell's Victor Jara lacks the edge of Dick Gaughan's definitive version but it's a courageous and challenging album, if unlikely to knock The Holland Handkerchief off that coveted number 8 slot in the chart of my heart. Colin Irwin

Irish Times Review 25 Jan, 2008 - 4 Stars
"With startling brio, Mary McPartlan returns to the fray with a bristling, blistering successor to her solo debut, 2004's The Holland Handkerchief. A snapshot in time, whispering of a creative surge in full flow."

Galway Advertiser, 31 Jan -
"With Seamie O'Dowd and Mary leading the way, the resulting album is a superb work which will surely set the benchmark for all Irish folk albums released in 2008"

The Irish Times: 25/01/2008 MARY McPARTLAN Petticoat Loose
With startling brio, Mary McPartlan returns to the fray with a bristling, blistering successor to her solo debut, 2004's The Holland Handkerchief.
Bathed in a sense of her Leitrim home place and populated by tales of personal insight (Kiss the Moon) and biography (Sanctuary), McPartlan's earthy, belly-deep voice is the perfect foil for the slow-build grim reaper of a tale that is Barbara Allen.
Her collaborations with another Leitrim native, poet Vincent Woods, have resulted in a complex tapestry of lives lived ordinary and well.
A surprise cover of Leonard Cohen's Sisters of Mercy somehow fits perfectly, transformed by McPartlan's no-nonsense delivery and Seamie O'Dowd's arrangements into a wonderfully shadowy, baroque set piece.
A snapshot in time, whispering of a creative surge in full flow. www.marymcpartlan.com - SIOBHÁN LONG

www.netrhythms.com
Mary's abnormally fine CD The Holland Handkerchief was a highlight of my listening year back in 2004, so it was in a heightened state of both eagerness and trepidation that I approached her latest offering. I needn't have worried in the slightest, for Petticoat Loose is another exceptional release.

Two years in the making, its essence is represented by, and crystallised in, the four principal strands of Mary's artistic endeavours: her close associations with luminaries of the traditional music world, her work at the National University Of Ireland, Galway, her ongoing musical collaboration with former Dervish multi-instrumentalist Seamie O'Dowd and her lifelong friendship with poet, playwright and broadcaster Vincent Woods. These strands, though on the surface quite diverse, are well unified here by Mary's marvellous singing voice: supremely strong, full of spirit and passion and an intense love of the songs she sings, whatever their provenance.

Having said that, Mary benefits much from the inventive nature of the settings given to the songs, which range from the epic layerings of Cúmha (Parting Sorrow) and Caoine Sheáin Mhic Searraigh to the altogether simpler, ungainly rusticity of the Romanian drinking song Lumé, Lumé (accompanied by the galumphing strings of the quartet ConTempo). Highlights are provided by the pair of songs collected by Stiofán O'Cheilleachair from the area of Drumkeerin where Mary grew up, which are both blessed with imaginative arrangements by Brendan O'Regan, while two further songs have an intriguing choral setting: a beautiful, small-scale-harmonised rendition of Barbara Allen contrasting with an ambitious treatment of Lowlands Away on which Mary's voice is surrounded by the surging waves of sound produced by NUIG's Orbsen Choir. A further standout track is Mary's solo unaccompanied rendition of the traditional narrative My Generous Lover, while another unexpected success is Mary's "strangely comforting" cover of Leonard Cohen's Sisters Of Mercy. The three Vincent Woods songs couldn't be more contrasted too: Sanctuary is a poignant childhood reminiscence, while Kiss The Moon's light-country-bluegrassy setting belies the personal and moving nature of its story and the album's title track playfully makes use of a bluesy kind of jig form to convey both the carefree abandon and the ominous intoxicating allure of the strayed woman of folklore.

If I must be picky, the album's two least successful tracks for me are Wild Mountain Side, where Mary's very strength of vocal timbre appears to hector the listener a touch, and Victor Jara, whose almost jaunty accompaniment works against the emotive power of Mary's voice. But these criticisms are very much comparative, as the album works so well as a whole and the rest of it is so fine.

No lover of good singing can be disappointed with Mary's performance here, while another definite selling-point must be her excellent and illustrious support crew, which includes Mairtín O'Connor, Cathal Hayden and the aforementioned Mr. O'Dowd (all of whom appeared on The Holland Handkerchief), with this time additionally (amongst others) Frankie Gavin, Gerry (Banjo) O'Connor, Garry O'Briain and Johnny Ringo McDonagh. David Kidman

FolkRadio.co.uk
Having enjoyed Mary's last album, The Holland Hankerchief, I am spellbound by the vastness and depth of this album and the standard it sets. There were quite a few surprises on here, including the drinking song Lume Lume where she teams up with the Romanian Quartet, ConTempo. Not what I expected at all...I was pleasantly surprised. If Mary's version of Lowlands doesn't bring an ache to your heart then I don't not what will. This is mighty music where Mary bravely opens her soul, this will be a hard act to follow I can tell you. Alex Gallacher

The Irish Democrat
WITH SEVERAL decades of performing under her belt and an artistic career taking in theatre, television and a host of other cultural activities and initiatives, it's hard to believe that Petticoat Loose is only Mary McPartland's second album.

Born and raised near Drumkeeran in Co. Leitrim, she began performing as far back as the 1970s. Since the mid-1980s, she has lived in Galway, building a solid reputation on the Irish folk scene while demonstrating her many talents as a singer, producer, director and organiser.

The release of her first album in 2004, the award-winning The Holland Handkerchief (MCPCD001), brought her talents to a wider audience. This excellent follow up should attract even more admirers and accolades.

Officially launched in February at SIPTU's Liberty Hall Theatre in Dublin - an event which McPartlan herself described as a mix of song, music, politics and human rights - the album is a personal testament to the experiences and passions of the singer's life. Assisted by producer and multi-instrumentalist Seamie O Dowd and a host of other notable musicians, McPartlan's voice is clear, strong and passionate throughout.

Although unquestionably rooted in the traditional, the album includes a wide variety of styles and material. These range from traditional and contemporary Irish-language songs to six new and original works.

The album also includes material from different folk traditions, such as Leonard Cohen's Sisters of Mercy, Adrian Mitchell's song about the murdered Chilean poet and songwriter Victor Jara, and the Romanian drinking song Lumè Lumè - the latter track featuring the Romanian string quartet ConTempo.

The opening track, Sanctuary, is one of the three excellent collaborations between McPartlan and life-long friend, poet and playwright Vincent Woods and composer Mairtín O'Connor. A mining song, Woods' lyrics set Co. Leitrim's "coal pits of misery" against the sanctuary of home amongst the fields and "blue green mountains" of the singer's childhood and youth.

From the 15th-century onwards, Arigna in Co. Roscommon and the nearby Co. Leitrim mountains were famous for iron and, later, coal, mining. Although the last pits closed in 1990, McPartlan's two younger brothers both experienced the hazardous, backbreaking toil of the mines before emigrating.

The song from which the album tales its title is another Woods/O'Connor composition. Based on a wild and dangerous - to men - female character from the folklore of Tipperary and Kilkenny, it offers a beautifully sung, but lyrically dark angle on the war of the sexes. There's no doubt in this song as who gets the upper hand.

A champion of Irish culture and language, the inclusion of two beautiful old songs (Caoine Sheain Mhic Searraigh/Síos Faoi Braoch Loch Aileann) comes as no surprise. Set to music by Brendan O'Regan, both originate from McPartlan's native Drumkeerin.

Cúmha (A Parting Sorrow), written and composed by Padraig Ó hAoláin and translated by Tim Dennehy, is a new song from Connemara lamenting the changes to Irish rural life and values wrought by the spread of industrialisation and wage economy.

A powerful song in it's own right, McPartlan's inclusion of Mitchell's poem Victor Jara is a clear nod towards the singer's past involvement with the Chilean exile community in Ireland and the Chile Committee for Human Rights. Set to music by Arlo Guthrie, Michell's poem has been previously recorded by a host of notable artists, most memorably perhaps being Christy Moore and Dick Gaughan. By any standards, McPartlan's version stands beside these as their equal.

With originality and quality in abundance, Petticioat Loose looks set to ensure that McPartlan's reputation as one of Ireland's finest female vocal talents is spread even further afield. David Granville

Return to home page

Click on spinning disc for purchase details

Please visit our website sponsor:

(c) 2004 Copyright CopperPlate Distribution