‘Coming Home’- An emotional new single release for Letterkenny's Deirdre McLaughlin

It’s an exciting time for one of Donegal’s most prominent music figures as Letterkenny’s own Deirdre McLaughlin releases her eagerly-awaited single ‘Coming Home.’

The track itself will be available to listeners as of this Friday, October 27. Earlier this week, she took time out to speak with us about how it’s all been going.

“This is the first single I’ve written for myself in around ten years. Most of the time, I’m writing material for other DJs and producers, so I suppose this is what you might call a triumphant moment,” Deirdre said.

Despite the anticipation that comes with the impending launch of Deirdre’s single, she’s the first to admit that the journey that got her to this point wasn’t always paved with gold. There were challenges and obstacles which she had to overcome, but through her unbreakable resolve, Deirdre explained what drove her passion.

“I’ve never had an experience like it, writing this song. It’s almost as if the song came through me and wrote itself. I had it written in less than one hour and had tears tripping me the whole time. It was intense,” she said.

“But I look back on it now and I realise it was given to me as a gift; one with an important message that I’m supposed to share with others.

“I think we are way more powerful than we think we are and way more capable and valuable than we believe. When we sit with ourselves and face the parts of ourselves that we’ve been avoiding or running away from, we begin to heal and make peace with ourselves

“When we love ourselves, it allows us to love others in the way that we all deserve. There can be a lot of darkness and I do believe that we are all given talents and strengths and that we are called to use them. It might be to bring a bit more light or simply just to make people feel that they are not alone.”

For us here in Letterkenny, it’s nice to know that ‘Coming Home’ was recorded and produced right here in the town. To be precise, the groundwork was done at FullTilt Studios, located in the Mountain Top, with the help of Tommy Conway and Paul Skelton.

This isn’t the first time that Deirdre has worked with either of these two gentlemen either.
A few years back, she collaborated with Skelton on a song called ‘Fairy Tales.’ Although his primary expertise could be found in piano playing, his knowledge and talents for production saw him come on board to lend a hand.

“I genuinely feel really good about this song. It’s as if everything that has happened in my life has brought me to write this one. It sounds almost spiritual, I know, but I just feel as though this was the one I was always meant to write,” Deirdre said.

The aforementioned Conway has worked alongside Deirdre on numerous projects for over a decade now. This time, however, he was given a new role to his ever-growing list of responsibilities.

“Tommy’s really good at filming music videos, so we shot it down in Ards Forest Park. Typically, the weather was very heavy with rain and we had considered pulling the pin on the video. We opted instead to head further down the road to Marble Hill and, thankfully, the beach looked just incredible,” she said.

Except for a handful of surfers in the distance, Deirdre and Tommy had free reign of the area which was enveloped in an eye-catching grey mist that added a sense of natural beauty to the captured footage.

“We got absolutely drenched that day. The only way we could’ve been more soaked was if we’d gone and jumped into the sea itself and I remember Tommy had to wrap his coat over the camera to protect it from the downpour. He took one for the team there,” Deirdre laughed.

All creators must suffer for their art and there was no exception to that rule for Deirdre on this occasion.

In her own words, she was very pleased with the quality of the video and referred to it as “very euphoric” in its composition. Or, as she casually put it, “it was worth getting soaked for. It wouldn’t be Ireland if it wasn’t raining,” she happily concluded.

Deirdre McLaughlin is without a doubt one of the most talented musicians to ever come out of this county. Much of her music is already available online and what you’ll notice is how creative she is throughout a variety of genrés; ranging from dance tracks to songs performed by piano, and acoustic guitar among others.

When asked about how she was feeling about the upcoming release of ‘Coming Home,’ Deirdre made it simple and clear that, out of all the song releases that have gone before, this one on Friday has been and will be “an emotional one.”