IRISH SINGER songwriter Conleth Kane has dedicated his song ‘Emerald Isle’ to all those who are living away from home and are missing Ireland as we approach the second St Patrick’s Day during Covid restrictions.
 
Originally from Lurgan, Conleth has been living and working between London and home for many years. Having initially trained as an actor, he studied with the National Youth Theatre and ArtsEd in London who count the likes of Julie Andrews, Bonnie Langford and Will Young among their alumni.
 
Embarking on what would become a successful ten year acting career, Conleth starred in a number of West End productions including Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph and Beauty and the Beast. He is also no stranger to our television screens having appeared in the BBC medical drama Casualty.
 
Speaking to Belfastmedia.com, Conleth said: “I was always a music fan and I had always wanted to record albums but I had become emersed in theatre training and had continued down that route.
 
“I never really had the opportunity to pursue a music career and then all of a sudden I started writing songs in 2016 and they were flying out in about ten minutes. I started uploading them to my Facebook page and I was getting hundreds of thousands of views.”
 

Discussing his song Emerald Isle he said: “I wrote the song on the London Underground. I was thinking about how much I miss my family as I have two sisters in Australia and a brother in San Francisco.
 

The Kane family pictured in 2010
2Gallery

The Kane family pictured in 2010

“I currently live between home and London so I am lucky in that my parents get to see me. As a family we are very apart and we have never felt it more so than during the pandemic. We haven’t been together as a family since 2010 and writing Emerald Isle was a tribute to my immediate family who are separated all over the world during the pandemic. 

“You worry about people not only from a health point of view but you never know when you will see them again.

“My niece’s wedding was supposed to happen at Christmas and that would have been the first in a decade that we would have all been together but that got cancelled.
 
“Mum and dad are in the vulnerable category and we as a family have been worried about them so being separated felt really tough. I thought a song like Emerald Isle resonates with so many people as there are so many that have emigrated from Ireland” he added.
 
Continuing he said: “I have had so many messages from people all over the world. From China to America there are people who have been reminded of home and their family when they hear the song. I definitely feel on St Patricks Day we are all very much reminded of how proud we are to be from Ireland.”

Conleth is perhaps best known for his song ‘Proud’ which he wrote in 2017 as a response to the North being the only place in the UK and Ireland not to have equal marriage and what he describes as feeling like a second class citizen.
 
Discussing Proud he said: “Proud is a universal lyric which is about being proud of yourself no matter what, be that your skin colour, your religious faith or your sexuality. If everyone in the world was the same, then it would be a very boring place.
 
“All my songs have been written in under 15 minutes and I see them as almost therapy. When I am at an emotional point a song flies out.”
 
Despite his confident exterior, Conleth doesn’t shy away from discussing his mental health. He told me of the impact that the pandemic has had on him.

“I recorded my album in 2019 and I was due to tour with Brian Kennedy in 2020 but that all fell through. Not only is that hard from a financial point of view but I was very unfortunate in that I didn’t qualify for any government support.

“all of a sudden, everything I had ever worked towards collapsed and dismantled. As well as the financial burden there was the emotional baggage that not only would it be detrimental to my finances, I was losing everything I loved as the entertainment industry shut down.
 
“when the industry does come back it will be even harder as even the successful people are struggling. My mental health nosedived during the pandemic but I am thankfully slowly starting to see the light again.
 
“only two months ago I wouldn’t have been able to have this conversation as I was in such a dark place and I had lost faith in my ability as an artist. The pandemic has been really hard on all of those in the entertainment industry and it frustrating that there has been little help out there for us.”

Looking to what lies ahead as we emerge from the pandemic, Conleth told us that he is currently working with 7th Heaven to produce a remix of Proud which is due to be released in the summer.
 
“7th Heaven have previously worked with the likes of Cher and Steps so I am excited about that and we are currently working on the music video which we will be filming once it is safe to do so.”

Click here to listen to Conleth's latest album.