banríon, the musical project of songwriter Róisín Ní Haicéid, today shares her new single Roseland, a deeply personal song that captures the enduring connection between place, family and identity. Taken from her forthcoming debut album Untarnishing, due out in October, the track offers another glimpse into the evolving sound of an artist moving beyond the indie-rock foundations that first brought her acclaim.
Originally emerging in 2020 as an indie-rock band drawn from Dublin’s vibrant DIY music scene, banríon quickly established a reputation through two acclaimed EPs, earning support slots with NewDad, Lime Garden and Pillow Queens, alongside appearances at festivals including All Together Now and Other Voices.
The upcoming album Untarnishing marks a departure from a ‘blazing indie rock’ sound (as described by Hot Press), to turn a gentler cheek. The softer sound was in part inspired by songwriting workshops with Adrianne Lenker and Florist, and the transition from a band to a solo project. Untarnishing is a sonic and lyrical mix that reveals banríon’s musical range and evolution.
This new single, Roseland, sits at the heart of that transformation.
The song began as an assignment during an Adrianne Lenker songwriting workshop in early 2024. Participants were tasked with bridging the dimensions between descriptive and confessional lyrics, using John Prine’s Far from Me as a model.
For Ní Haicéid, the exercise led her back to Donegal, where her mother’s family has lived for generations.
“My mother’s side of the family is from Donegal, and I spend a lot of time there visiting my grandparents and other family, so I had a wealth of descriptive imagery to work with; the medium sized house, the dog with two different eyes and the abundance of love that flows from there. My grandparents’ house, called Roseland, was my great grandmother’s house before them, a cottage along the Donegal railway line on the south coast. I wanted the song to be quite rhythmic to mirror the sound of a railway. I developed the track further that year through a few sessions with one of my musical heroes, El Kempner of Palehound. Diarmuid O’Connor and I recorded this song mostly in County Kildare, and partially in a shed in Dublin early last year.”
The accompanying video extends the song’s themes of family and belonging. Directed by Ní Haicéid alongside her cousin, it was filmed at Roseland itself and stars another cousin performing the lyrics in Irish Sign Language.
“This connection to family and place made it crucial to have my family involved in the making of this video. My cousin Kate Gurren and I directed the video in Roseland and it stars my cousin Aoife who interpreted the lyrics into Irish Sign Language. My auntie Michelle is deaf, so we have all grown up with an appreciation for the Deaf community, and the beauty of their culture and language. Irish Sign Language is such a rich language with so much room for metaphor, humour and movement that I thought it would be perfect to use in this music video.”
UPCOMING LIVE SHOWS:
23rd July – The R.A.G.E, Dublin Single Launch
25th July – Next Door Records 2, London Single Launch