Pauline Scanlon

‘Her voice is a superb mix of china cup fragility and steely strength” (The Irish Times, 2010.) It’s 2022, more than a decade later, and this contradiction is still true of Pauline Scanlon’s voice. In fact, the pairing of opposites seems a true fit for this West Kerry native. Her voice comes from an ancient place but is always fresh. She is uniquely Irish yet universally understood, apparently traditional yet subversive at every turn. Perhaps now, it is the steely strength that comes to the fore in both her activism and her determination to constantly evolve as an artist. As a founding member of FairPlé, the role of women in the arts is central to her creative path and something she is very vocal about and dedicated to. Her new album, The Unquiet, to be released in March 2022, is a piece of art possessed of an old soul, but thoroughly modern and of its time. It is an album that will shift expectations and stand undefined by genre. What makes it so relevant is that it dares to reimagine what it is to be an Irish woman in the context of music and song.