An Chéad Ghlúin Eile drop new album titled ACGE
An Chéad Ghlúin Eile /un kayd gloon ella/ meaning: The Next Generation, are sean-nós singing sisters and native Irish speakers from the Ráth Chairn Gaeltacht, carrying one of Ireland’s oldest living musical traditions into a new generation.
Originally from Conamara, the sisters are the grandnieces of Darach Ó Catháin, one of the most celebrated sean-nós singers of his generation. His remarkable voice was preserved on his acclaimed 1975 solo album with Gael Linn. Darach passed away in Leeds before the sisters were born, but his singing remained a living presence within their family.
In the oral tradition of sean-nós, songs are not simply inherited, they are absorbed. They pass from voice to voice, generation to generation, through listening, memory, repetition and the intimate act of singing together. ACGE grew up immersed in this tradition, listening to Darach’s recordings, learning his songs and instinctively finding their own voices within his.
More than five decades after Darach’s landmark recording, An Chéad Ghlúin Eile have created an extraordinary musical encounter across time: the sisters sing in harmony with the recorded voice of a granduncle they never met. In doing so, they have created something without precedent in traditional Irish sean-nós, adding new, living harmonies to the voice of a deceased sean-nós singer and transforming an historic solo recording into a new intergenerational performance.
The album also brings the sisters’ father into the musical lineage. He features alongside them on the record, with the sisters singing in harmony with him on tracks A and D. Together with Darach’s recorded voice, the album brings three generations of the family’s singing tradition into one body of work - the voice of the past, the generation in between and the next generation.
This is not an exercise in nostalgia, nor simply an act of preservation. It is sean-nós as a living, evolving tradition: the past heard anew through the voices of the present.
Just over 50 years after Darach Ó Catháin’s solo album first introduced his voice to the world through Gael Linn, ACGE places that voice in conversation with a new generation, allowing a song tradition carried through family, language and memory to cross the boundaries of time.
Three generations. One album. One living tradition.
ACGE is a landmark meeting of heritage and innovation: a deeply personal family story that opens onto something much larger - a rare and unprecedented new chapter in the story of sean-nós singing.
For more information, visit ancheadghluineile.com or follow on social media:
Instagram: @AnCheadGhluinEile
TikTok: @AnCheadGhluinEileXo
Slán go fóill.
