About Seánie
Seánie Bermingham is a Dublin-based folk artist from Mullinahone, Co. Tipperary, whose expressive lyrics and intricate musical arrangements cultivate unique soundscapes which speak to feelings of heartbreak, anxiety, and acceptance. With influences ranging from Sufjan Stevens to the folk revival of the 60’s and 70’s, Seánie’s songwriting and performances are marked by an intimate sincerity which can be felt in the most elaborate swells and the sparsest whispers. This range of emotion is given its fullest expression as a live performance, with the show being described as being equal parts confessional, upbeat, moving, and tender.
The First Telling
On the First Telling, Seánie says “I recorded and produced this song, and the album, in a renovated cowshed on my family’s farm in Mullinahone, Co. Tipperary. The space was once a cowshed and potato store used by generations before me, including my grandmother. It was transformed by my parents into a concert venue - my father is a farmer with a deep love of music and the best guitarist I know. The farm, bought by my great-grandfather in the early 1920s, has changed over time, but will always be where I feel most at home. It allowed me to work without time pressure, take long walks through the fields and forests, and build the album from the ground up. Throughout the album, you can hear the sounds of the birds chirping and my father driving the tractor outside the room where I was recording. The farm and space is as much an instrument as anything else on the album.”
The album artwork weaves past and present. On my return from South America I stood before ‘The Harvesters’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art which brought me back to my childhood days on the farm working alongside my father, running through fields with friends. From a small fragment of that painting I recreated the scene with friends on Slievenamon, framing a turning point where curiosity and wonder began to resurface, and inviting listeners into that space where memory and renewal meet.
The title The First Telling is drawn from a passage in Patrick Kavanagh’s The Green Fool. In it, struck by illness, Kavanagh seeks to keep his condition hidden to prevent the slow, intimate machinery of rural rumour from turning. A neighbour’s discovery, however, produces more excitement than sympathy; she becomes the first to know and delights in spreading the news. Raised on a Tipperary farm, I knew characters like her well and saw how stories swell around the kitchen table. This debut album is my own First Telling - the moment of offering something private to the world for the first time.
Listen to The First Telling here