Eleanor Shanley looks back on her career as she talks to Kay Doyle about her new album and life on the road.
“It’s a gentle album, there’s a few songs that I hope people will find comfort and solace in. It’s an album of hope and contentment and if I can make people feel that when they listen to it then I’ll be happy.”
Eleanor Shanley is very excited to tell me about her new album Forever Young as we sit outdoors making the most of October’s ‘Indian Summer’.
“To me, this album reflects very much where I am in my life at the moment,” she says. “I’m in a really good place, a content place and I’m at an age where I can say ‘this is me, this is it, this is what I have to offer and if you like it that’s fantastic’ whereas I think a few years ago I’d be trying so hard to please everybody and wondering if something was cool enough, but now it’s just me.”
Although quite a private person, Eleanor is happy to tell us that she is just moving into a new home in Ballinasloe, Co. Galway with her partner of four years Brendan Harding. Brendan is the brother of writer Michael Harding and a surgeon at Portiuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe.
“We met four years ago through friends and just connected. We knew what we were signing up for with each other’s jobs but we get on very well and so it’s a lovely time for us to be moving to Ballinasloe. It’s a really old house that we’re moving into, but we have no kitchen sink at the moment,” laughs Eleanor, “so we did move in with everything but the kitchen sink.”
