NEWS
Press Release via AS Written, November 2022
MICK’S ‘KATIE RUA POWER’ IS SECOND SINGLE IN WEEKS
Folk singer/songwriter MICK CITERN WALSH will release his second single in a matter of weeks when another of his own compositions, KATIE RUA POWER, becomes available across all platforms from NOVEMBER 12th. The new release will follow on from last month’s seasonal treat, Halloween Night, yet another original from the Waterford native’s ever-expanding songbook. In what has certainly been a busy year for Mick, who also managed to fit in the Dublin City Marathon last weekend, Katie Rua Power will become his fifth single of 2022.
Katie Rua Power, reveals Mick, “is an emigration song”, one that links a long line of musicians in his family… “I built the song and story around the chorus”, Mick says, before breaking into song, “I want no more of your barley bread/ I want no more of your porter/ I want no more of your barley bread/ I want no more of your porter/ She’s a happy womaneen, happy womaneen/ Happy womaneen always/ She sweeps the house with the tail of her gown/ She’s a happy womaneen always”. “I got those words from my late father”, he continues, “and they were handed down from his mother. This is an imaginative effort from me, a lighthearted song. I made sure that no one died and no one cried in it!”
Due to the early passing of Mick’s grandfather, his grandmother – who was also a musician, playing both the concertina and the fiddle – reared the family on her own, passing on many tunes and a love of music. Some of Mick’s uncles could knock tunes out of the old melodeon or the squeeze-box. At that time, a ceili at a crossroads was a regular meeting place for music on Sundays. And, as most people in the area were mountain sheep farmers, the instruments would come out by way of celebration and relaxation when the shearing had been done. That musical legacy continues down the family line to this day with Mick’s son and daughter having sung on previous recordings.
Mick’s original plan was to release both Halloween Night and Katie Rua Power in the calendar month of October. However, when Halloween Night – released on October 14th – was so well received, Mick decided to change gears and let Halloween Night have October to itself…
“We were going to put out ‘Halloween Night’ first, and then follow it with ‘Katie Rua Power’ just at the tail-end of October. With a song called ‘Halloween Night’, as I said at the time, you have a limited window of opportunity when it makes sense to do something with it, and have it be in some way relevant. So I kind of thought, well, release it in the middle of the month, and it will have had its chance to get out there and at least exist in the right space. But the response to the song was so good, with loads of lovely messages about it, that I actually began to feel bad about cutting its life-span too short! [laughs]. So, in the wind-up, out of fairness to the song, I said I’d give ‘Halloween Night’ the run of October, and we’d just go a little later with ‘Katie Rua Power’.”
While Katie Rua Power may be making its way to us just past the month of October, its November 12th release date means its arrival into the world will still fall within a month after Halloween Night. And that in itself is a fair achievement from the man who now calls Kilkenny home.
As well as Katie Rua Power and Halloween Night, Mick has also released the singles Outside The Daffodils Will Rise Again (May), The Seventy-Nine to Ballyer (July), and The Twenty-One Steps (The Butterslip Song) (September) in 2022.
Mick’s regular Sunday night ‘Lives’ on Facebook have become not-to-be-missed occasions for folk fans, with Mick performing a mix of his own songs and those from some of his favourite artists. And to anyone who has made their way to the famed Monday night sessions in Cleere’s of Kilkenny in the last three decades, Mick will also be a well-known face, having organised and overseen that event – now one of the longest running sessions in Ireland – for a good thirty years.
~ KATIE RUA POWER, the NEW SINGLE from MICK CITERN WALSH, will be available on all platforms from NOVEMBER 12th. You can join Mick’s regular Sunday night ‘Lives’ on his official Mick Citern Walsh Facebook page (Mickciternwalsh).
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