From his debut album, Since Kyabram (2004), the County Galway-based artist has been praised by songwriting and media figures such as John Prine (“a great songwriter”), Edith Bowman (“Since Kyabram is an album I will listen to for the rest of my life”) and Paul Weller (“he writes the sort of classic songs that people don’t write anymore, songs that sound like they’ve been around forever”). His work, meanwhile, has been covered by an array of world-class artists, including Christy Moore, Camille O’Sullivan, Eddi Reader, and Josh Groban.

“My goal is to take something that has already moved me,” says O’Rourke, “and paint it into some kind of poetic vehicle that will carry it to others, with the correct instructions inside for them to unpack it and get the same result. Over time, I have found that being an artist is a process of stripping away layers of yourself in order to get to the core, to get to something that is pure and honest.”

In several important ways, O’Rourke’s new, emotionally potent songs hark back to when he started out during the glory days (and nights) of Dublin’s singer-songwriter scene. The truth is he doesn’t like walking the same path over and over again. A deeper truth is that while artists need to secure themselves to their own identity, they also have to explore outside it.

“If you had a palette of different colours as a painter,” says O’Rourke, “why would you limit yourself to red and white?”


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