During the first two weeks of each March from 2014 to 2019 I labored over this project to the great displeasure of my wife and children. This was most likely because I began with only the flawless, unaccompanied performance of Danny Boy by Sinéad O'Connor on The Late Late Show in December, 1993.

I had already created numerous sound pieces employing the looping and stretching of a single track, but this was resulting in a sort of aural homogeneity that seemed entirely wrong given the beauty of the source material. At some point, it occurred to me to use something else for the stretched portions of my design...

While trolling about for other versions of the song, I came across an unabashedly romantic reading of The Londonderry Air by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy from 1965. However, as the whole exercise was for the edification of Saint Patrick’s Day celebrants, I felt that uilleann pipes were necessary. I eventually found an educational channel administered by someone named Michael Eskin who used Danny Boy in one of his tutorials. I also decided to add a flute: in this case, the version recorded by James Galway and The Chieftains for their 1987 album, ‘In Ireland’.

These disparate sources were all in different keys and needed to be brought into alignment with the voice before I could construct my standard drone and add the sound of the ocean.

Owing to its dubious inclusion, I made the decision to cut the final verse and instead use a drum loop constructed from the opening of a certain famous song decrying sectarian violence in Northern Ireland from when that was a thing.

The voice that introduces the piece is that of Shane MacGowan in a lucid pub moment that I found in an uncredited documentary excerpt which, judging from his teeth, appears to have been from around the time of Hell’s Ditch.

I created the artwork around an 1868 engraving by an artist named Henry Doyle entitled ‘Emigrants Leave Ireland’ that features prominently on the Wikipedia page dealing with the Irish diaspora. The green is built up from the layering of the Chicago River on Saint Patrick’s Day and a sheet from a Pantone guide. Since I worked destructively throughout much of this project, I have no idea how these elements came together but will not here spurn the generosity of providence…