Pauline Scanlon

Born in Dingle, County Kerry, Pauline Scanlon sings in a register that draws on both contemporary writing and the traditional repertoire of Irish music. Dingle sits within the Corca Dhuibhne Gaeltacht, where Irish is the everyday first language, and that setting shapes her relationship with song. Her voice carries the lineage of that community while reaching toward modern influences.

Her grounding came early. Scanlon has sung professionally since she was 15, when Tony Small, a Galway singer and keen collector of traditional songs, handed her a set of old folk tracks that became her first material for gigs. Pubs around Dingle followed. Later she toured widely with Sharon Shannon and appeared on RTÉ's The Late Late Show. Her first solo album, Red Colour Sun, arrived on the Daisy Label in 2004 and was issued in the US by Compass Records. Hush, a project with Donogh Hennessy, Darrell Scott and others, came out in August 2006 on Compass. In 2022 she released The Unquiet, a record made to honour her late mother.