Poor Creature are one such, a trio comprised of Ruth Clinton, Cormac MacDiarmada and

John Dermody. All three are members of other bands (Landless and Lankum respectively)

who have built a large following on re-interpreting songs from the past. They formed during

lockdown and the original line-up was initially just Ruth and Cormac. “Ruth and I had

played together a lot before and then lockdown hit. Suddenly we had a load of time at

home with a room full of instruments, so it started from there,” says Cormac. The decision

was also not a conscious one, adds Ruth: “We never said: ‘let’s start a band’ it was more

‘let’s arrange this song’ and see what happens.”

Their first gigs were online during the pandemic as part of cultural festivals. “One was an

online event called Box Moon, organised by Natalia Beylis and Decy Synnott. Musicians

and artists from all over the country made videos at home and watched them together on

Twitch, a rare moment of community at that time. We made a tape recording of An

Draighneán Donn, using Ruth’s new theremin. It grew from there.” It slowly built into

something. John joined about 18 months later and remembers their first gig, a benefit

show to pay for a hip operation for a friend’s greyhound, for which they had no time to

rehearse. “We just improvised and couldn’t even hear each other – but it was kind of

magical, and that sort of carries into how we make the songs.

The process of creating the arrangements is very much driven by the instruments

themselves, specifically with a vintage organ. “Ruth got this lovely, old Hohner Organetta,

which has a bunch of pre-programmed drumbeats. We sometimes start with one of them

and the song develops from there, like on ‘All Smiles’ and ‘The Whole Town Knows.” So

we had these fixed, looping beats, with no deviation. Later, when John joined, he added a

natural kind of ebb and flow. We got the best of both worlds: this fixed thing, and then

something else dancing around it, says Cormac. “When I joined and we went into the

studio, the spine of everything was already in place,” says John. “Some of it was simple,

but it was also tricky because in terms of metronomic timing, folk music doesn’t

necessarily give a shit about drummers – timing is often at the behest of the singer. Often,

I come in after the fact so it’s a different relationship and a different conversation happening in the songs. So on the quieter moments, rather than something that is foundational and perhaps providing that momentum, there is something more conversational happening, more like weaving.”