Colm MacCárthaigh: Vocal and Guitars, Colleen Raney: Backing Vocals, Rosie Plunkett: Backing Vocals, Jocelyn Pettit: Fiddle, Matt Jerrell: Drums, Ryan Davidson: Double Bass, Philip Boulding : Low Whistle, Brenin Williams: Cello

Lyrics:

There’s a light I’ve known
It’s cold and distant
Like two in the morning
Or fog on the moore
And it’s in Evening’s Echo
And Morning’s Shadow
Because you are an Island
And I am the shore

There’s a path I walk
It’s long and silent
But steep and climbing
Like the mountains of yore
But the air is cooler
And the sky is clearer
And the starts there shining
Like holes in the floor

And I wish I had your flight of wings
And I wish I had your songs to sing
And I wish I had our time again
Tonight to dance to Magical Strings

There’s a light I’ve known
Alive and beating
But fast and fleeting
Like a firebird’s tail
And it’s heat is heaving
And it’s colors are busting
Around the smile in your eyes
And the mischief of your mind

And there’s your hand I’ve held
Through howling laughter
Through bruising brushes
With the vogue of the day
You’re a melancholy wonder
Tearing my heart asunder
Because you are an island
And I am the shore

And I wish I had your flight of wings
And I wish I had your songs to sing
And I wish I had our time again
Tonight to dance to Magical Strings

There’s a light I’ve known
It’s cold and distant
Like two in the morning
Or fog on the moore
And it’s in Evening’s Echo
And Morning’s Shadow
Because you are an Island
And I am the shore

Notes about Time Again

When I met Nóirín, she was 19, and I was 23. Already, she carried a fearless energy radiant enough to light up a room. She was gregarious, and engaging, to my quiet and reserved, but somehow we worked. We were together for almost 4 years, and hopscotched the world. Dublin, London, Limerick, Ennis, New York, Munich, Nuremberg, Amsterdam, Leiden, San Francisco, are just some of the stops. For her birthday one year, we slept in an igloo on the slopes of Zugspitze.

Our musical and our professional lives interweaved. Nóirín played the harp, and could sing in Irish with a kind of béal that rarely comes to those who didn't grow up in a Gaeltacht, but she was stubborn and could always do something she put her mind to. We both became members of the Apache Software Foundation, and while I stuck to making a living writing code that powered the internet, she would go on to organize Apache conferences and became a Vice President and board member of the foundation, while still in her early twenties. Unreal.

But our journeys parted ways. She found a good husband in Zurich, I sacrificed 80 hours of my weeks at the altar of some crazy tech startups in the Netherlands. Later I'd move back to Dublin, briefly enough to buy a house but not really put down roots, and then to Seattle where I've lived for nearly 10 years now. Along the way, we'd still talk occasionally, Nóirín would always review and edit any piece of writing I had, and we'd catch up and talk songs and tech, at a distance.

Then many years later, when her husband had faded from her life, I was driving along NE 60th Ave in Portland Oregon, on my way to a rehearsal at Colleen Raney's house, and I was beyond startled to see Nóirín crossing the street. Thousands of miles from anywhere we had ever been, there she was, right in front of me. I honked at her, which prompted one of those irate "how dare you!" looks that she could give, which quickly gave way to a beaming smile and shock.

We caught up over drinks at a McMenamin’s bar, I learned of the new life around her in Portland, and we made some more plans to meet up. That Christmas, she came to one of the Magical Strings shows at the Alberta Rose, where I was playing as a guest. After the intermission, she dressed up and danced with the kids’ procession on stage. She could still light up a room.

Her time in Portland turned out to be tumultuous, and she moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts where they found a wonderful community of supporters and friends. I write "they", because around this time Nóirín preferred to identify as non-binary, transcending gender and embracing a universal humanity. Though she also preferred that those who'd known her a long time consider her a girl (her word) and a she. It's complicated. Things were always complicated with Nóirín, and they often liked to have things two ways.

I caught up with them in Cambridge, we had drinks and a big dinner, and a nice walk home through Harvard Square. Rosy cheeks and light feet. That was the last time I saw Nóirín. Ill-health can be a terrible injustice, and it was particularly acute for Nóirín. After battling a terrible illness, and seeming to make it through, Nóirín died of heart failure. In 30 years on Earth, Nóirín had an incredible impact on the world, and until that moment, was never short of heart.

Nóirín's death made the news, it was the number one story on their favorite website, which I'm sure would have thrilled them in their favorite macabre kind of way. To those of us left behind, it was devestating. I flew to Boston to be with Nóirín's family, and I got to meet some of Nóirín's friends there and make some new lifelong friends myself.

In the following months, I was struggling to write a song for that year's Magical Strings Yuletide shows. Ambitiously, I wanted to write something of an anthem, that would resonate with people. But nothing was coming. Nóirín was close to my heart the whole time, close like an embrace, but distant and forever unreachable.

I had the pleasure of a one-on-one songwriting workshop with Susan McKeown. She drank tea and listened and gave me some of the best writing advice I've ever gotten: Ditch the guitar and focus on the song, feel it, and write from what is around you and personal. Over the next few weeks I wrote this song, "Time Again", and it's about Nóirín, for her really, and those feelings I had. Those feelings that we all have when we lose someone close.

If you knew Nóirín, you'd see them all over this song, the nicknames (firebird, mischief), the waltz timing, the colors busting, but really the song is universal because grief is universal. We've sung it as part of Magical Strings, every year since, and Matt and Brenin have strongly influenced the arrangement over the years. When we sing it, we sing it for everyone we've lost, and I've lost count of the people who've come up to me and thanked us for doing it. I still miss Nóirín, and every single time I sing this song it's a challenge, it's brought me to tears, but it's a small catharsis too.

Recording this song has been by far the hardest musical challenge I've ever had. It means so much to me, and I know to others. Joining me on it are people from the families that I'm closest to apart from my own. Nóirín's sister Rosie Plunkett is singing some of the backing vocals, my dear friend Colleen Raney is singing too. Philip Boulding (low whistle), Brenin Williams (Cello), Matt Jerrell (Drums) and Jocelyn Pettit (Fiddle) from Magical Strings are playing on it too, along with Ryan Davidson on Double Bass. It's really something to have such great people in my life, and to put their talents to this. That brought me to tears too.

And that's it folks. "Time Again" is the first time I've put out one of my own songs in recorded form. It just worked out that way. If you've lost someone dear to you recently, I hope it brings something to you too.