Music: Kevin Doherty

We are so excited to bring you this fabulous 11-minute film, especially made for ICC Digital, featuring the awesome singer-songwriter Kevin Doherty, who many of you will know as a member of the Irish Supergroup ‘Four Men and A Dog’! Kevin is without doubt one of the most gifted singer song-writers in Ireland. He has so far produced four fine solo albums, his most recent album was ‘Seeing Things’, ‘Sweet Water’, ‘Telegraph’ and ‘Strange Weather’ which was recorded in Woodstock Studios and featured Levon Helm from ’The Band’. Kevin has worked with many of the greats in Irish music, including Henry McCullough, (from Wings), James Delaney (The Van Morrison Band) Arty McGlynn and Altan. Kevin’s music inhabits a clandestine world where Roots meets Americana, with a tincture of Irish Trad thrown into the mix. In this film Kevin is accompanied by the virtuoso Conor Brady, who over the last 25 years, has forged a reputation as one of the greatest Irish guitar players and the most sought-after session musician in the country. He has played with many of the greatest names in music, among them The Rolling Stones, Ronnie Wood, Mary Coughlan, Bono, Shane McGowan and Sinéad O’Connor. In this film Kevin sings two of his songs, ‘Bloomsday’ and ‘Oh My Love’. Here is what Kevin has to say about them: ‘Bloomsday' came about as a happy accident. I had begun reading Ulysses and was engrossed by the ‘Calypso’ episode when I happened to visit James Delaney. James was playing around with a Caribbean type melody which was instantly infectious, it mixed with my calypso, knocked on the door of number 7 and I walked back through the city with a song on my hands. The version recorded here is different from that original one which I recorded with Four Men and a Dog and more akin to the version I have been performing recently with my friend Ciaran Tourish and recorded on our album Hotel Fiesta. 'Oh My Love’ is a mix of the here and now and the then and there. Songs have their own unique genesis. In this case the song resulted from a re-reading of Seamus Heaney’s book Seeing Things. One of the early poems in the collection is called ‘The Journey Back’ which opens: “Larkin’s shade surprised me. He quoted Dante: ”This line opened me and it was nothing more than impishness that suggested the following (as if addressed to Seamus): “Larkin’s shade surprised me too”. My ghost could not however muster Dante rather he took on a more contemporary aspect and was in fact riding for Deliveroo. Now once the image of Philip Larkin on a mountain bike, delivering buddha bowls to Beggars Bush was firmly established there was no going back. It is in effect an insomniac prayer which 'latches onto the affirmative’ and ends where hope springs, as evidenced in recent referenda here in Ireland. These two songs are both available to buy online. Kevin’s albums are also available to purchase. As musical artists have lost their income due to the Pandemic, we strongly encourage you to support them by buying their music.

Added 12 Jun 2026