Pioneering project opens up musical avenues to mothers

Groove Tube with Cian O’Connell

Belfast’s Oh Yeah Music Centre has long been a valuable social and creative resource for music makers in and around the city. Offering a rehearsal space, a live venue, a café space and a recording studio, it is a cultural hub that champions diversity and eclecticism in music.

Such is the case with Mothers in Music, a project that has been in the works for well over a year and finally came to fruition between February and May of this year. Endorsed by the likes of Katie Tunstall, Michelle Escoffery and Olga Fitzroy, the course facilitated seventeen women from around Ireland in its maiden year – one of whom was forty-three-year-old mother of two, and Ballinasloe native, Róisín Whyte.

Supported by the Carers’ Music Fund and PRS for Music, Mothers in Music is a twelve-week song writing, recording and performance programme designed for female musicians with caring responsibilities.

“It was intense but in a really good way,” Róisín explains. “It was a combination of home-schooling and trying to do my own work and various things but the session would happen from 10am to 1pm on a Thursday.

“It was almost like my treat for the end of the week for when I got my own work done and I’d managed to keep my kids alive. My husband took the kids for that time – we’re both self-employed which has been difficult but it allows for some flexibility.

“It was intense but it was very nice because when everything fell apart with Covid, I had no time to myself and all of my music work fell away completely. It was a nice intensity because it was just about connecting with people who were having similar challenges and also to just meet some tremendous musicians and make connections and think about potential future collaborations.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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