The Limerick Lady 56: Tracy Bruen, DIY Musician: The Cost Is You
Release Date: 07/20/2023
The Limerick Lady 75: The End (For Now)
The Limerick Lady Podcast
The FINAL EPISODE (maybe, probably, for now at least) of the Limerick Lady Podcast. After 7 years of cobbling these spiels together, we decided, for the craic, to let Zoom's "AI companion" take a swing at writing the episode summary for the show notes. "In this final episode of their podcast, Emma and Ann announced the indefinite suspension of Limerick Lady, citing a lack of friendship between them as the main reason. They reflected on the podcast's history, including its origins with Limerick City Community Radio and notable episodes featuring various guests, while also discussing their...
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2 minute thought on 10th Anniversary of Marriage Equality
The Limerick Lady Podcast
On the 22nd of May 2015, Ireland became the first country in the world to legalise Marriage Equality by popular vote. That is exactly ten years ago today, at the time of recording of this short note by Ann, one half of The Limerick Lady. Ann briefly reflects on how conversations and openness were what won the campaign. Let's be sure to keep talking and listening. Ann will be performing her show, The Morning After The Life Before (@morningafterlb on Insta), in Dance Limerick on Saturday the 24th of May at 8pm.
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The Limerick Lady 74: Róisín Ní Ghallóglaigh, Consent and Coercion in Irish Traditional Song
The Limerick Lady Podcast
Welcome to the April edition of the Limerick Lady Podcast. Alternate title: "What gets me goin' about Bóinn". We were joined this month by the brilliant Róisín Ní Ghallóglaigh who recently gave a seminar on the sexist themes within lots of traditional Irish songs that for a long time we've all just kind of... Overlooked, or not known about. Róisín Ní Ghallóglaigh is an accomplished solo performer, guitarist and composer. She is currently a member of Irish-Estonian trio, Iiri-Eesti Lauluvagi, featuring Anne-Mai Valk and Hanna-Reet Ruul. In 2020, she released her album Red is the...
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The Limerick Lady 73: Sharon Slater, historian, "in the end everybody dies"
The Limerick Lady Podcast
We're back! Did you miss us? Did you even notice we were gone for a month? Did you spot our new glasses? Our haircuts? Honestly, sometimes feels like you're just not paying attention... Anyway, WE'RE BACK with a March edition of the Limerick Lady Podcast. We're joined by sarcastic and all-knowing (almost) oracle Sharon Slater, to talk about Limerick's link to Saint Patrick (if that even IS his name) (It's not). Sharon Slater is an award-winning historian and author whose focus is on the history of Limerick. She has appeared on RTE, TG4, and PBS promoting Limerick's past. Her...
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The Limerick Lady 72: Eve Stafford "Art Is A Business, Business Is An Art"
The Limerick Lady Podcast
For our first episode of 2025, we're joined by pun-lover, recovering graphic designer, style icon and professional soprano Eve Stafford: the brand new president of the Limerick branch of Network Ireland, and possibly the first artist to be president of the branch! Network Ireland is a non-profit, voluntary organisation, with over 1,000 members and seventeen very dynamic branches. Established in 1983, this is a progressive, dynamic organisation supporting the professional and personal development of women. Eve is a professional singer and classical crossover soprano from Limerick. She's...
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The Limerick Lady 71: Our Ho-Ho-Hopes for a Better 2025
The Limerick Lady Podcast
Ann and Emma reflect on the year gone by and hopes for a better 2025. In this "angry corner" we have a little cathartic rant about the state of Ireland's housing crisis, the lack of supports in Limerick for victims of sexual assault, the horror of what's happening in Afghanistan, and the appalling lack of non-skinny-jeans for baby girls... And lots more besides. This podcast is a look at the ideological and practical feminist issues of 2024, and what we hope we won't have to keep talking about next year. The Limerick Lady is a grassroots movement based in Limerick, Ireland, with a...
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The Limerick Lady 70: Opera Workshop and Limerick's "Banned" Author
The Limerick Lady Podcast
What happens when your books, for all the right reasons, are banned? Well sometimes the controversy just drives demand; unfortunately it also often means the author's name is all-but-lost to the mists of time, and relegated to the back of the collective mind. Such was the case for Limerick's own Kate O'Brien whose 50th anniversary we mark in 2024. O'Brien had two books "Mary Lavelle" and "Land of Spices" banned in Ireland, and she herself was banned from Spain, for expressing some very progressive ideas around politics, women's liberation, and sexual identity. On this month's episode we...
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Special Announcement: No Episode This Month October 2024
The Limerick Lady Podcast
Rest in peace Annette Hannon and condolences to the Blakes and the Hannons
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The Limerick Lady 69: Sex-Positivity and Entrepreneurship with Shawna Scott, Sex Siopa
The Limerick Lady Podcast
Come one, come all! This month we celebrate 69 episodes of the Limerick Lady with a chat about sex, sex myths, the sex toy industry and lots more with Seattle-born, Galway-based Shawna Scott the founder and owner of "Sex Siopa". Shawna talks to us about seeing a gap and choosing to fill it, about the holes in medical professionals' knowledge around sexual health and pleasure, and about how she opened up for business during the pandemic. We will not be apologising for euphemistic language, no we will not. Shawna Scott is the owner and founder of the multi-award winning SexSiopa.ie...
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The Limerick Lady 68: Playwright & Actor Georgina Miller On The Highs And Lows of Aerial Theatre
The Limerick Lady Podcast
Limerick's Georgina Miller Georgina is an actress, writer and voice-over artist. She's also a graduate of the full-time actor training course at the Gaiety School of Acting. Georgina won the award for Best Actress from the Guinness ISDA Festival for her performance in "At the Black Pig’s Dyke" (MIDAS). In this month's episode she talks to us about her debut play, a hybrid aerial show called "Freefalling". Freefalling is an autobiographic play about a backpacking trip in her 30s during which she developed the incredibly rare Guillain-Barre syndrome which left her paralysed, alone and...
info_outlineThis month we talk to Galway artist Tracy Bruen. Tracy was on the lineup of the first ever Limerick Lady event at the Limerick Milk Market in the summer of 2016. She joins us 7 years on to catch us up on her life and career. Over the last ten years, Tracy has toured extensively throughout Ireland and Europe. Her debut album "Mirror" was released in 2017. Singles from her sophomore album, "Waiting", released in January 2023, have received extensive national and regional radio play, with "Dream Away" and "Silence Crawls" both reaching the top ten in the RTÉ Radio charts.
Over the years, Tracy has shared stages with some of Ireland's best loved acts such as Mick Flannery and Mary Coughlan, as well as playing many of Ireland's major festivals including Electric Picnic, Body & Soul, Sunflower Fest and the Galway Arts Festival. She is continually and consistently developing her audience both at home and abroad, and was dubbed Original Solo Artist of the Year in 2015 by the Galway Advertiser.
On this episode, Tracy talks about the cost – personal, emotional, and financial – of being an independent artist, and the investment of energy that every show and new release takes. She talks about hitting her limits; about coming through breast cancer, and the age-old issue among the self-employed of not listening to her body when it told her it needed rest.
We explore how hard it is to survive in the music industry; how an artist chooses the order of songs on a record; the current landscape of the industry in terms of gender balance; and why Tracy no longer plays old songs that she doesn't connect with.
Find Tracy at www.facebook.com/TracyBruenMusic or on Instagram at @tracybruen
“..a gentle beauty, Bruen’s folk and classical stylings crystallising in the pure notes of her voice”
— Evoke.ie
You can download her music at www.tracybruen.bandcamp.com