Leah's bio

Leah is an Irish singer/songwriter and a single mother of two living in Blarney, Co. Cork. She was born in Albany, New York and started writing music for the first time in 2017 at age 32. In October of 2019 Leah was invited to play musical support for legendary artist Andy Irvine at the Cork Folk Festival. 

Leah has spent time living in a few parts of the world including Vermont, New York, Colorado, extended stays in France, Germany and Italy and has spent about a year traveling and raising her children in Morocco. "I loved Ireland from the first time I visited. I especially love the land itself, the ruins, literature and history, the trad scene, the country's pride in their independence and the working class culture. And I love sea swimming and the proximity to the sea wherever you go."

Leah has lived in Ireland for ten years now and as a result of her travels, her song imagery draws heavily on rural landscapes. She also has a love for classical literature, folk tradition, nursery rhymes and epic poetry. Her subjects are often animals, objects and mythical creatures.

Leah released an EP of four of her songs in 2018 with the band The Howling Hecate, which included the track 'Tuam.' The track was written for her mother who was a rape survivor and who was forced to live in a Catholic home for unwed mothers in Upstate New York. Leah dedicated the song  "To the survivors of the Magdalene Laundries and to anyone who has been unceremoniously buried in one way or another." 

Her 10-song debut album, breaded crickets, was released in 2019 and blends the folk singer’s powerful lyrics with the ingenuity of Martin Leahy, who plays well over a dozen different instruments on the LP. The album also features gorgeous guest vocals by the highly acclaimed songwriter Mick Flannery who co-wrote the track 'Sam's Song,' touching on issues of race and class.

 'The Valley's of Her Mind' is her most recent single and is the first co-write between herself and Martin Leahy who've been working together for five years.

Martin Leahy is a singer songwriter and musician living in Bandon in Cork. He released his debut single, Song For Kirsty MacColl one year ago. During that year he released another two singles, The Wolves In The Valley and Brian, which both received great airplay locally and also made the RTE Radio One Recommends List resulting in lots of national airplay. He was selected as a finalist in the USA International Songwriting Competition reaching the final 16 in the lyrics category out of an overall number of 26,000 entries. He also played his first solo gigs and released a three track EP for SomeRiseSomeFall in aid of the charity ‘A Lust For Life’

Martin is a musician from Cork and has been a playing on the Irish music scene for about 20 years. Along with his recent successes as a singer/songwriter he has worked extensively with some of Irelands greatest songwriters and musicians including John Spillane, Christy Moore (on his No.1 selling album ‘Listen’), Cormac O Caoimh, Ger Wolfe, Jimmy McCarthy, Greenshine, Noel Brazil, Declan Sinnott among many others. An accomplished multi instrumentalist, he has produced many albums including the most recent very successful album by Cormac O Caoimh called ‘Swim Crawl Walk Run’ which was awarded album of the week by many radio stations including RTE Radio One, RTE Lyric and BBC Radio Ulster. He also produced Ger Wolfe’s well received album ‘I Have Been Loved’. Other productions include Leah Sohotra and John Neville. As a member of the traditional Irish group North Cregg he has toured the World playing many major festivals including Glastonbury, Cambridge and Milwaukee. As a songwriter he has collaborated with a number of writers including John Neville, Mary Greene and more recently with Cormac O Caoimh on his successful single ‘Building My Ark’ which received substantial airplay around the country reaching 870,000 listeners nationwide!