For a number of reasons, Oisín Walsh-Peelo, the musician and founding member of The Fynches, was always going to end up in West Cork. As a child, his parents – Toni and Mick, an opera singer and a monk-turned-investigative reporter for RTÉ, respectively –would take him and his siblings, Ferdia, Tadhg and Síofradh from their home in Ashford to Ballylickey’s Eagle Point campsite for the summer holidays, away from the suburbs of Dublin and into the Atlantic Coast.
As a teenager, playing hurling for Wicklow, he would regularly come up against Cork players and marvel at their proficiency. So when an opportunity arose to spend months at a time engrossed in the weeds of Clonakilty, he knew he had to take it. “It was the end of 2020, and I was living in Cabra,” he says. “I loved it there; it felt so vibrant. But the place I was renting was being sold, and an opportunity came up for me to do something other than music.”
Walsh-Peelo took a job with some friends he’d met at restaurant/organic grower Camus Farm, learning how to grow his own vegetables and lean into horticulture, a subject he’d become interested in. He stayed for two years, but, in his words, “music took over again”.
“We hadn’t been able to play for two years, and then when things opened back up, everyone grabbed it by the horns. But I’ll never forget that time, and that community openness which I haven’t really experienced anywhere else,” says Walsh-Peelo.
For the uninitiated, Walsh-Peelo, who now lives at Dundeady near Galley Head, is somewhat of a primary cog in the Irish music scene. A session musician who has played with the likes of Villagers, Hudson Taylor, Gemma Hayes and Bombay Bicycle Club, his musical touch tends towards the golden, which is why when he formed a band with his actor brother Ferdia and Danny Boyle’s people listened. The Fynches began back when Ferdia, seven years Oisín’s junior, was amidst his first leading role.
“I was his chaperone when he was filming which worked because I was in college down the road from where they were filming. We hadn’t really hung out before, and we quickly realised that we had a lot in common and we were a good musical team. So we started writing, and some of those early tracks are actually due in our first album, which is out in a matter of weeks.”
The Fynches centres around the brothers’ songs, along with a group of roving musicians – generally from bands and groups both Walsh-Peelos have worked with previously, like Camryn Teehan, Fionn O’Neill and Julia-Maria – to create something fluid and full of movement.
“The only constant has been myself and Ferdia’s songs, really,” Walsh-Peelo smiles. “We definitely love gaining members, though, even if that’s not the best business decision.”
Their long-awaited, self-titled album debuts on October 7, a piece forged of sound-blending vocal harmonies and an eclectic 1970s aesthetic; think the Beach Boys meets Lankum meets CSN. The band spent much of 2024 hunkered down in the studio together, only really leaving for tour dates and high-profile appearances on and but with the live band now in place, the brothers’ songcraft has been able to shift from the studio to the stage.
As The Fynches are a band that comes into their own under lights, a beckoning suite of Irish, UK and European tour dates awaits them from November all the way into 2026. Until then, Walsh-Peelo will be involved in a gig of a new kind: lecturing at the Cork School of Music.
“I just started two weeks ago,” he smiles. “It’s gone grand. It’s a change of pace, for sure, a lot of emails, but it’s really cool. It’s amazing to be in this facility and get to teach undergraduates things from piano to pop to classical.”
Between classes, he will be back doing what he loves, working with musicians like Caiman Gilmore, Patrick O’Leary and British band Flyte, but not before he finishes up a musical theatre project with Mick Flannery. “I think he’s doing a musical because his music wouldn’t traditionally lend itself to musical theatre,” Walsh-Peelo laughs. “But it’s set for production next year.”
Walsh-Peelo pauses to consider the life he’s made for himself in Ireland’s southernmost tip. Does he miss the East Coast? “Honestly… no,” he laughs. “I spent a lot of time in Dublin, and I loved living there. But there is something really special about where I live now. What holds me there is the community, the friends I’ve made, and the openness of everyone here, it made me feel at home very quickly. That takes a while in a new area, but now here. That’s really special. And yeah, to be honest, I just wouldn’t have any desire to live anywhere else.”
- The Fynches self-titled debut album is released on October 7. For more information on the Fynches’ music and upcoming tour dates, visit www.thefynches.com
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.irishexaminer.com ’
