Every year, thousands of Irish musicians apply to perform at the highly-coveted Ireland Music Week. Featuring live sets and conferences across several venues around Dublin, it allows the lucky fifty artists selected to showcase their repertoire in front of international delegates representing various major and independent labels, agencies, promoters, and distribution platforms.

One such lucky performer to make it through this year’s selection process was the Donegal singer-songwriter Declan Mc Clafferty, who recently began the alt-folk outfit Ramper as a home project to lay down a collection of songs he crafted. “I started this probably eighteen months ago,” Declan tells Post-Burnout of Ramper.

“So, this set of recordings, I released two things at the start of the year. I did one in February and one in April. I did that just to test the waters and see if people were interested. I like releasing music and I wanted to start doing it again. People will tell you lots of different things, ‘You should do this’ or ‘You should do that,’ but I don’t know. I think to just do your own thing is better.

“I decided that I was going to release music, and then I got the Ireland Music Week thing, and I decided then to strip it to an EP instead of an album, because I had wrote an album. So, I decided to take my foot off the accelerator a wee bit and make it a wee bit more suited.”

Last Friday, at the time of publication, Ramper’s wiry, illusive and experimental debut EP, If You Want a Good Dream, was released. “It’s getting a lot of press,” Declan says of the EP and, by extension, the project. “It’s building all the time. I only really started this year, so I’m a bit impressed. I’m getting calls to talk with cool people, like yourself. More and more, as the days go on, it builds up. I’ve been really enjoying it. There’s a great sense of achievement. People are really enjoying it.”

While Declan has been writing and performing for a while, Ramper’s upward trajectory seems quite rapid from an outsider’s perspective. When we asked Declan if it felt sudden to him, he responded, “It’s funny when you’re in it. I think it feels quick when you see the finished thing, but when you’re mulling over songs for a while and sitting on stuff and working on it and it is your whole world for a long time, it sometimes feels like you’ve been working on a group of songs for ages and ages.

“By the time it comes to releasing them, things happen much faster. Behind – what goes on in your head, or the studio, or your house – is more arduous. But I am a fan of moving fast with things and with writing things, and not being completely precious about it, and trying to be in the moment, in the sense of, ‘This is what I’m writing right now and, in two months time, I might be writing things about new things.’ It feels, sometimes, like I’m sitting on stuff for a long time when it comes to releasing them, and I’m like, ‘I’ve got this other batch of songs, now, that I’d rather release,’ you know what I mean?

“It kind of feels, as time passes, you move on a little bit from the work and I don’t know if that’s a good thing. I like just kind of rolling with it. I don’t think anyone else likes that because they like to be organised, whereas I just like to do it as fast as possible! [Laughs]”

For someone like Declan, whose career with Ramper is (admittedly, swiftly) fledgling, a slot at Ireland Music Week is quite the springboard. “I think it’s just really cool to even be considered for it,” Declan says of being chosen. “Again, there’s only fifty places and everybody wants to do it, so I don’t know.

“When I was making this record in my house by myself, I didn’t expect to do it! [Laughs] I applied for Ireland Music Week and I didn’t think I would get it, but here I am, so I’m just trying to sink into the moment! The music industry is […] hard to understand, so I’ve just been chipping away!”

For Declan, Ireland Music Week is as much an opportunity to expand his reach domestically as globally. “I’m looking to have a good time and to meet other Irish artists, not just the international delegates,” he says. “I want to speak to other people like myself, that are doing what I’m doing.

“I think it’s really important to put on a really good show and just to introduce this new thing to a bigger audience in Dublin and beyond, and just grow from there – beyond my house, beyond my laptop screen – and meet real humans. I’m excited to connect and enjoy music.”

But it’s not just nascent acts who benefit from being featured at Ireland Music Week. As a point of comparison, musician Maria Kelly has released music for nearly a decade and has accrued a loyal fanbase through her vulnerable and sincere glassy numbers. “It’s a really amazing opportunity to showcase to international territories,” Maria tells Post-Burnout of what Ireland Music Week means for her.

“I’ve been really lucky in building a fanbase in Ireland, and I’m very proud of everything that me and my team have done, but I guess I’ve never fully got the chance to showcase stuff for other territories, and I’m really interested in trying to get a little further, so I think Ireland Music Week is a really incredible time to do that because they’re flying in, all these delegates from all over the world, and I’m hoping to amplify what I’m doing a little further.”

Well-seasoned, Maria is aware of how the music industry can affect the mental health of those working within it and has used her platform as a means of discussing these struggles and how therapy has benefitted her. Maria feels that she can see her growth and experience documented in her discography.” I think writing music, for me, has always been a processing tool, much like journaling,” she says.

“It was always something I would’ve kind of done to understand my own experience of things. So, I think they’re very autobiographical for me, and I can hear reflections of things I was going through at the time. In the years I’ve been in therapy, I was writing so much, actually, because I was learning so much about myself, and how I view the world, and how other people view the world, and I found that really interesting. So, it definitely found its way into my music.”

We asked if an event like Ireland Music Week, which, while beneficial from a vocational standpoint, could also induce stress or anxiety from the pressure of the performances, could negatively affect performers’ mental health. Using her own experiences to engage, Maria responded, “There was definitely an added layer of pressure with a showcase like this.

“Actually, in the first few months that I got the news that I was doing this, I was very anxious about it and I kind of built it up in my head and put a lot of pressure on it for myself, but I actually have kind of reflected over it, myself, over the last few weeks and just kind of talked to a lot of people that I was working with, and have got to more of a place where I’m actually just looking forward to doing it.  

“I’ve had to work on that, myself, with the music, of just focusing on the stuff that I can control – or it’s not even just music; just life, really [Laughs] – and just trying to control the things that I can control and put on a good show because, at the end of the day, that’s the part that I’m in charge of, so I’m just going to try and do that. I definitely would’ve been way more anxious about this when I was younger, but now that I’m a bit older and have people around with a perspective on the whole thing, I’m able to go into it with a little more confidence.”

2024 has been a productive year for Maria. On top of consistently headlining across Ireland and the UK, she released the singles “Drive” in May and “Slump” in September, which were the first tastes of what’s to come from her upcoming sophomore record, the successor to 2021’s the sum of the in-between. On the 10^th, Maria will release the third single in this line, “Something Better,” which features guest appearances from Julie Hough and Nigel Kenny of HAVVK.

“‘Something Better’ is the third single from the album, which is exciting,” Maria says of the song. “For me, it’s a key track on the album because it kinda speaks to this core theme of finding yourself in a position that you don’t really want to be in and finding the courage to get yourself out of it. This is more on the comedic side, where I was poking fun at myself a little bit, and it’s a bit more in the pop universe, I guess, or the pop-indie…We tried to write a fun song, basically! [Laughs]

“So, I’m excited about this one coming out because I think it’s kind of a tongue-in-cheek song that people can sing along to. With this song, I ended up writing it with some friends of mine, so with my producer Matt [Harris] and two of my friends. It’s kind of a song about not being able to get things right and, kind of ironically, I couldn’t get the song right for a really long time!

“It went through so many iterations, and I couldn’t sing it at some points, and we changed the key, and I rewrote the…Like, there were so many issues that I don’t normally have with the song, but it’s when I brought it to more people and asked for help, which I also think is ironic because things usually get better when you ask for help, so that’s how it came together.”

When we then pried about the album itself, Maria responded, “People can expect it quite early next year, I would say. I will be sharing more details about that soon. [Laughs] Keeping it secretive, but I will say before Christmas! It will be a nice Christmas present for people, hopefully.

“It’s quite different; we really took some risks and, creatively, pushed in different directions. It’s much more of a full band, so there’s a full drumkit on this record, whereas some of the in-between’s were really just electronic drums and a kick here and there. So, a much more fuller sound, really beautiful soundscapes, and a couple of experimental things.

“I was learning a lot about what my voice could do through the process of this album and I started to take some vocal lessons. I’ve always been quite a delicate singer but I’ve actually found a lot more power in my voice through this album, which – again, kind of ironically – is what it’s about, so! [Laughs] Yeah, I say there’s a lot more courage on this album.”

Maria is looking forward to going on the road with this album; a joy she wasn’t afforded by its predecessor.  “My hope is that I get to tour a lot with this album because my last one kind of came out at the tail end of the pandemic, so there wasn’t a lot of opportunities to play live,” she says.

“So, we’ve spent the last year building a really great live show, and I feel like I’m the most confident I have been with performing, so I’m just really excited to get out there and play for people, so I’m hoping I can do that and people will have me! [Laughs]”

Maria Kelly and Ramper will play at The Workman’s Cellar tonight as part of Ireland Music Week. Tickets can be purchased from Ireland Music Week’s website. Ramper’s debut EP, If You Want a Good Dream, is available on all streaming platforms now. Maria Kelly’s latest single, “Something Better,” will be released on October 10^th. You can keep up with Maria through her website and with Ramper through his website.

Aaron Kavanagh

Aaron Kavanagh is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Post-Burnout. His writing can also be found in the Irish Daily Star, Buzz.ie, Totally Dublin, The GOO, Headstuff, New Noise Magazine, XS Noize, DSCVRD and more.