Are there any early memories of being interested in the arts?
I have been singing since I could stand. I can remember early records that my dad had, like Johnny Cash and Glenn Campbell. I can remember hearing those songs. I was always acting and performing. I got into my first band when I was 16.
Did you get any support at home or at school?
I did school plays and school musicals. I was in the drama club at school. There was a teacher called Patricia Irvine who taught speech and drama outside of school and she asked if I would come to her classes. I did all my Guildhall Speech and Drama Grades through her and she got me to join Bangor Drama Club.
Did you go on to study art or drama?
I did A level art at school. I painted and I wrote poetry. I wasn’t always great at any of it but I always felt that I could express myself through art.
I went to the University of Kent to do drama and I changed that after the first year. I shifted to study Philosophy.
How did things develop from there?
I always wanted to work in the arts, initially as a performer, so I busked all the way through university. I sang in different bands from electronic music to Irish traditional music. I was in a play which ended up at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I played guitar really badly, just enough to play a few chords to accompany my singing.
What happens after you finish university?
I left university and moved up to London and met a guy from Belfast. We met at a party after a gig. He was managing a band at the time.
I was a Protestant from Bangor and he was from West Belfast. We started going out. He was managing bands, I was singing in bands, music was a huge part of our lives, a huge part of what we did. We ended putting on gigs together.
What happens then?
He starting doing some work for the Northern Irish Tourist Board. He would bring traditional musicians from Northern Ireland to showcase them at folk festivals in England and Scotland’. The idea was to try and show that there was another side to Northern Ireland, because most of what you heard was negative. We wanted to promote Northern Irish music and culture.
This was at the height of the Troubles and people would laugh when they heard that Northern Ireland had a Tourist Board.
Anúna performed at one of the early Open House Festival in Belfast
You then return to Northern Ireland?
Once the Good Friday Agreement was signed we wanted to come back to be part of the cultural renaissance and play a part in the building a shared identity. Because we were from different sides of the political and religious divide, it was very important to us that whatever we worked on, it had to be neutral and welcoming. It had to be a positive expression of culture in Northern Ireland.
We came back in 1999 and we started a family and we also started working on the Open House Festival.
