Damien Dempsey has said that the late Sinéad O'Connor sent him a sign from beyond when he was recording his new album, Hold Your Joy.
O’Connor passed away in July last year while Dempsey was working on the new record with Sinéad’s former partner and collaborator John Reynolds in his new studio in Enniskerry in Wicklow.
"He had just set up his new studio there and it hadn’t been used yet and Sinéad passed so I flew down to Enniskerry because I knew he’d be shook and very sad.
"I said let’s go into the studio and work on a new song I had called Louise, which I wrote for Irish women and I hope Sinéad would have approved of it, I wanted to record it for her. So, me and John went in and started working on the song and the instruments and microphone went crazy, they started going mad . . .
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"There was no scientific reason why they’d be doing that so I said, `that’s Sinéad’. When someone passes we often ask for a message and there was Sinéad’s. We had said to each other if one of us passes, we’ll send a message so here’s Sinéad’s. It was lovely to hear from her."
Louise is one of 16 new songs on Hold Your Joy, Dempsey’s first collection of new music since Soulsun in 2017. It’s the singer’s most musical diverse record to date, ranging from a rock-out about footballer James McClean to the no holds barred Landlords in the Government to the moving I Can Feel Your Presence and even ambient dub on Push Through The Blue.
It also boasts a very impressive list of collaborators including Brian Eno, one of Dempsey’s earliest and seemingly unlikely champions, Dido, who he has collaborated with before, John Grant and Reynolds himself, who has recently moved from Kilburn in London back to Ireland.
Hold Your Joy is funny and sad, strong and defiant and all held together by Dempsey’s soaring voice. "Singing songs has helped me through my own depression and darkness," he says. "I knew it was going to work on other people because it worked on me.
"I had very bad depression when I was younger and I realised that when I sat down on the bed and sang for half an hour, I’d feel better. It shifted something and gave me hope and light. I recognised singing helped me through life and the rocky road."
Dempsey says the album was inspired by a book entitled The Book of Joy by Douglas Abrams, which is based on conversations between the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
"This album is all the knowledge and wisdom I’ve accumulated from listening to wise people and asking them questions," he says. "It’s all the lessons I’ve learnt and it seems to be helping people."
Dempsey, who attended U2’s alma mater of Mount Temple and then the Ballyfermot Rock School, has released 11 albums and established himself as a soulful and spiritual storyteller with his simple but powerful songs.
Hold Your Joy could be his finest moment yet. The album’s most moving track is I Can Feel Your Presence, a love song to the lost which echoes his experience on the day Sinéad died. "I get nudges from the other side all the time," Dempsey says.
"Me mother said she was a white witch and so was her mother and they knew things before they happened. I get little signs and messages from the other side. I used to ignore them but I don’t anymore. I have a very strong belief in the afterlife."
The big talking point of the new album is Dempsey’s song about James McClean, the Republic of Ireland international and Premiere League footballer who grew up on the Creggan estate in Derry and who has received anti-Irish abuse for his ongoing refusal to wear football shirts bearing the symbol of the remembrance poppy.
Has McClean heard the song? "He has indeed," says Dempsey. "I know a friend of his and passed the song on. I wouldn’t have released it without him hearing it. he gave me the ok. I had to know what he thought and if it was a good reflection of his experience
"I don’t understand sectarianism," he adds. "We have this precious gift of life; we don’t get to spend very long on this planet so why waste your life being full of hate and bile? You’re being very ungrateful for your life with that attitude if you choke it up with hate."
McClean is of course a fan of The Wolfe Tones, the Irish rebel song band who have had a huge spike in popularity in recent years among a younger audience. The veteran act have attracted the biggest ever crowds recorded at Electric Picnic and their upcoming farewell gigs in Dublin have taken on the feel of a tribal gathering.
Asked about how he feels about how cries of "up the Ra!" have recently been rediscovered by a new generation, Dempsey pauses and says, "They’re singing songs about the history of Ireland.
"It has been a long, long fight and struggle for independence. People sing Rule Britannia and all that about Britian colonising over 50 sovereign states. They robbed people and murdered them and it’s ok for them to sing that song. It’s horrible that we had to fight for our freedom. War is the worst thing ever."
So, what does he make of people in the media and elsewhere condemning young people for singing those type of songs. "I just try to stay out of it and sing about love. I am about unity." Dempsey says.
Album track Devil’s Dandruff strikes even closer to home and chronicles the blight of cocaine addiction, something the singer has seen up close from a very early age.
"It came in early around here," he says. "I know lots of people who I went to school with who are now dead, they were shot, they were stabbed, they died of heart failure. It took its toll and killed a lot of people and people don’t realise how deadly a drug it is.
"It’s built on the slave trade. I’ve seen so many people being taken away by it. Lots of people are committing suicide and cocaine is a big factor in that. It has destroyed the fabric of society."
Going by its title alone, Landlords in the Government does not mess about and like his ode to James McClean harks back to old folk songs and summons up visions of a modern Castle Rackrent.
Dempsey has become a voice for the disenfranchised and the left behind over the years but has any Irish political party ever tried to recruit or co-op him, especially now in the run-up to a General Election?
"Ah no. to be honest, I wouldn’t align myself with any party but I would love to see a left-wing coalition getting into government," he says. "We are a rich country and when the workers can’t afford to buy a house something’s not right.
"When the frontline workers are homeless and they’re living with their parents in a rich country . . . I know that might sound simplified but I don’t care. There has to be a better way. Something has to be done."
Asked how he feels about putting out an album at the same time of Christy Moore, who has just released his new record A Terrible Beauty, Dempsey laughs and says, "There's only one Christy Moore, I’ll always be his understudy. He’s a hero to me."
Dempsey is now gearing up for his annual run of shows at Dublin venue Vicar Street. Over the years these gigs have become a cathartic ritual in which his songs of defiance and hope become anthems of light in the darkness.
With typical understatement, he calls the week-long run "the singsong of the century" but it means so much more to his very loyal audience, some of whom featured in Love Yourself Today, the 2021 documentary film about the gigs.
"It gives them a great lift, it really does and they look forward to it all year," he says. "It puts them on a better frequency, a better vibration. Singing communally arm and arm is so good for people and the empathy and the love in the room is palpable. You can feel it.
"I’m there to lift the audience, to bring them down and lift them again. It’s all about the audience because without the audience, I’d be working a Kango hammer or working security on a door, which are two great jobs but I’m better at singing. When I pass over the great divide, I’ll have to get a tribute act to do those Christmas shows."
Damien Dempsey plays Vicar Street on 16, 17, 19, 20, 22 and 23 December.
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