A new Junior Brother song has long been good cause for some celebration here at TTA.
In the six years since we featured him as one of our 18 artists to watch out for in 2018, Ronan Kealy has underscored his status as one of the island’s all-time songwriting greats. A born curveballer par excellence, the Kerry native increasingly put paid to the kneejerk “alt-folk” mantle via sprawling songs that are as burrowing and beatific as they are brilliantly-realized.
It’s a fact woven throughout his latest, ‘Take Guilt’. Paired with a lyric video by Dylan Gomery, it’s a sorcerous five-minute feat that explores privilege in an all-too-unjust world for minorities.
“Things in the world are hard to ignore,” says Kealy about the song. “Some things are almost impossible to forget. Privilege is reaching the end of the article and closing the paper – guts wrenched, heart broken and everything forgotten by dinner time. Modernity unburdens itself, desperately trying to progress past history’s horrors – but horrors that used faces as currency will forever look back at us in the mirror’s reflection. Small disgraces face minorities closer to home every day. I’m white and male and I have done nothing, but the crimes and horrors done in my face’s name requires me to take guilt. I’ll bring this guilt with me to escape hate, as the news of morning clears into the long dead day.”
A video for ‘Take Guilt, starring Éanna Hardwicke and directed by Ellius Grace, will be unveiled on October 4th. Watch the lyric video below and catch Junior Brother over the next few months.
Oct 19 – Dublin – The Bello Bar (V. Ltd. Tickets)
Oct 22 – Liverpool – Kazimier Stockroom
Oct 23 – London – Omeara
Oct 24 – Brighton – Prince Albert
Oct 26 – Edinburgh – Voodoo Rooms (Speakeasy)
Oct 28 – York – Fulford Arms
Dec 17 – Dublin – 3 Arena (The Pogues – Red Roses For Me 40th Anniversary)
Mar 22 2025 – Belfast – Black Box
Photo by Niamh Barry
