Ru O’Shea: Reviving Tradition and Reliving Memories

Ru O’Shea is a musician that is part of a wave of young artists that are reinvigorating  traditional Irish Folk music. The contemporary Irish folk musician pays homage to iconic songs by reimagining them for a modern audience to enjoy. He has also taken his music beyond the stage and has introduced Traditional Irish music into health care settings as an arts in healthcare worker.

His Music and Inspirations

Ru O’Shea has been passionate about music since childhood. He was enamoured by the lively syncopated beats, rich storytelling, and history of traditional Irish music, fully immersing himself into the scene. He humorously admitted that he couldn’t master all aspects of trad music, saying, “I failed to play the fiddle. It didn’t really work.”

He briefly gravitated towards rock and roll but rekindled his passion for Irish folk music and again dedicated his time to becoming a more complete artist. Over the years he has spent his time gigging as a solo act and has added new material to the bedrock of his music catalogue.

When asked about the artists that inspire him, he said “The artists that really inspire me are the ones who find old folk songs and kind of breathe new life into them.”

He credits these artists for maintaining the relevance of old Irish music in contemporary society, saying, “A folk song is kept alive by each new generation taking an interest in it, maybe reinterpreting it, and making it relevant in the modern age.”

He cites Lankum, a Dublin based contemporary Irish folk music group, as his favourite band and a perfect example of the type of artists that embody this. Saying “Lankum does an incredible job at reinterpreting these old songs and making them feel new again”.

He goes on to list Lisa O’Neill and John Francis Flynn as major inspirations adding “They all have this bedrock of new interpretations of old songs but also have their own original material that draws inspiration from older traditional songs. This is the kind of thing I’m trying to do.”

While these contemporary Irish folk artists are the primary source of his inspiration, he also looks to other more mainstream genres of music, even something as abrasive and brash as heavy metal.

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Arts in Healthcare Work

While scanning Ru’s Instagram account, I noticed something interesting written in his bio, “Arts in Healthcare Worker”. Initially, I assumed that he worked in healthcare and that his music career was more of a hobby.

When I queried this, he revealed that he was involved in doing work for organisations that facilitate the introduction of art, in this case music, into healthcare settings.

He provided a brief description, saying “So that’s music as well. It’s arts and healthcare. I’m literally just coming from The Alzheimer Society of Ireland. So what I do there is I go in and I facilitate music sessions, kind of a sing along, mostly with popular, old folk songs.”

He continues, “I believe it’s kind of an emerging field whereby we use arts as a medicine.”

The healing qualities of music has been recognised by various cultures over the last two millennia. The rhythm and melody soothes the soul and provides a psychic relief. This sentiment was echoed by the author, Debasish Mridha, who said “Music can heal the wounds which medicine cannot touch.”

He often works with older people that have dementia and Alzheimer’s, both conditions cause a marked decline in an individual’s cognitive abilities, loss of memory being the most commonly associated symptom.

For a better understanding of music and its therapeutic benefits for patients, I approached a leading authority on the subject, Anam Music Therapy. Anam Music Therapy was founded by music therapists, Fabian Joyce and Dr. Lisa Kelly, in 2020.

Fabian summarised Anam as “A social enterprise dedicated to providing accessible music therapy services to people in Ireland. We are an organisation that promotes improved health, functioning and well-being through music – something that we are highly passionate about doing.”

Anam provides music therapy in schools, day centres, hospitals, nursing homes, private residences and in communities throughout the country. Music therapy incorporates a range of techniques used during sessions, which are tailored to the clients specific needs.

He points out that patients do not require any musical skills or knowledge to benefit from this therapy and summarises the process as “the use of music to achieve non-musical goals.”

I mentioned Ru O’Shea and his work as an arts in healthcare worker. He responded, saying “Like Ru, I myself have had the privilege to be involved, as a musician, in some amazing Arts in Health initiatives in hospitals in the west of Ireland. It is very enriching work and brings much needed diversity, inspiration and positivity to work environments where it’s needed most.”

However, he did clarify that there is a distinction between music therapy and arts in healthcare. A musical therapist is a licensed professional that uses music as a therapeutic medium, their primary focus is centred on the client. The primary focus of an arts in healthcare worker is the music itself, the music provides some relief to the patients that are in an uncomfortable setting.

I asked Fabian about the benefits of introducing music into a healthcare setting, he replied, saying “As music therapists we know, in a very different way, the power of music. Be that traditional, classical, rock , rap, whatever, it has the potential to promote change, be that physical, emotional, psychological or spiritual.”

He continues, “Music accesses more areas of the brain than any other stimulus, an evidence based fact that comes from neuroscience. We hear so many stories about the positive and sometimes life changing impact music can have on people.”

“We often work with the most vulnerable in society, and safeguarding is of paramount importance at all times. We must be cognisant of the power of music and in an ideal world, we would have music therapists, arts in health musicians, community musicians all working in the same facilities, side by side.”

While speaking to Ru, it was clear that, like Fabian, he found his work to be incredibly rewarding. Stating, “Singing these songs can do incredible things for peoples’ cognition, there’s also a huge emotional benefit to it”.

He continues, “We gather around in a circle, do things as a group and sing. Singing is good for the heart. Doing things with people is good for the heart. And, yeah, I believe that there’s a lot of benefit to it.”

Many of the patients he works with grew up with traditional music, so these songs essentially act as portals to memories associated with their younger years. When one of these songs triggers a memory response, he describes it as an incredible moment to witness.

He mentions Waterford Healing Arts as one of the organisations he works with and holds them in high regard, saying “it’s a fantastic campaign. I would say that Waterford was the first organisation in the country to bring the arts into a healthcare space.”

Waterford Healing Arts introduced various mediums of art into health care settings in an effort to ‘soften’ the experiences of patients, families, and the healthcare practitioners.

Its formation traces back to 1993, when Dr Abdul Bulbulia and Mary Baxter gathered an arts committee that commissioned and unveiled Remco de Fouw’s Quintess-ometry, the first art instalment exhibited in an acute hospital setting. Seeing how beneficial it was for patients, the committee went on to form the first Waterford Healing Arts Trust (WHAT) Committee.

In 1996, WHAT officially launched the Healing Sounds music programme, which introduced live music to the foyer and patients’ bedsides at the Waterford Regional Hospital (now University Hospital Waterford).

Ru and a panel of other musicians walk the halls and wards of University Hospital Waterford with instruments in hand to sing and perform at patients’ bedsides to provide comfort and add a bit of life to the sterile clinical settings.  He describes these interactions and experiences with patients as “profoundly beautiful moments”.

Outside of his arts in healthcare work, Ru also readily lends his voice to noble causes. Last month, he performed at an event in Tipperary, organised by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which featured acts such as The Accidental Rapper, Leen Maarouf, and other Palestinian and local artists.

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New Material and Upcoming Gigs

Currently, he is actively working on new material. When asked about this, he said “I’m sitting on a bunch of new songs that I plan on recording, if I can get a little honey pot together. I want to record and put out some singles next year.”

He is placing much of his focus on live performances. He believes that gigging allows his songs to “mature” while also giving him a sense of what is working.

If you’d like to see more of Ru, you can head over to his Instagram. It has videos and images of some of his performances.

If you are interested in seeing him perform live at The Homestore, Blessington on the 30th October 2024. He will be joined by Grace Lambert on fiddle and Peter Smyth on double bass.

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