DERVISH singer Cathy Jordan joked that the group will finally become an “overnight success” in America — after nearly 40 years of hard graft — following the signing of a major television deal with a US broadcasting giant.
Over the next two years, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) network, which spans some 330 channels, will air the Irish trad group’s TV special, The Great Irish Songbook, beginning on February 27. The show features special guests including Imelda May, David Gray, Brian Kennedy, Moya Brennan, Kate Rusby and the Indigo Girls.
“We’ve been slogging away for almost 40 years, going back and forth to America,” Jordan said, laughing, in an exclusive interview with The Irish Post. “There’s lots of other great traditional bands that plough the same furrow. It took us all this time to be an ‘overnight success’ with PBS.”
For Jordan, who joined the band in 1991, music was never conceived as a career strategy but something far more instinctive.
“It’s a vocation,” she said. “It was never a career move. I don’t think any of us sat down and talked about careers in music. It was more, this is what we love and this is what we want to spend our time doing — and if you manage to pay the bills with it, all the better.
“A lot of people in traditional and folk music are happy to be the bubbles under the surface that come up every now and again.”
The PBS deal, however, represents something different — a moment of wider recognition, not just for Dervish, but for Irish traditional music itself.
“When something like this happens, all the ships rise,” she said. “Irish music bubbles away all the time — people return to it again and again. It resurges, ebbs and flows. It’s fantastic wherever it pops up. You see it appearing in TV shows like Peaky Blinders and elsewhere.”
Dervish, who have long maintained a strong touring presence in the United States, see the agreement as a natural extension of decades spent cultivating audiences there.
“Our American tours are the backbone of what we do,” she explained. “It’s not just the Irish diaspora — there’s a genuine love of folk and traditional Irish music across America. That path was trailblazed by people like the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. America has always been a stalwart in our lives, and this will only enhance that.”
Jordan’s own journey into music began in a household steeped in song.
“I grew up in a sing-song party home,” she recalled. But the possibility of music as a life’s work first dawned on her when her older sister Marie brought her, aged 13, to see Dolores Keane perform with De Dannan.
“It was a huge influence on me. It was my first proper concert — to sit and listen and take it all in. It was earth-shifting.”
Her sister would remain one of the defining influences on her life. Marie died of cancer in her mid-thirties when Jordan was just 21, a loss that continues to resonate decades later.
Jordan recently wrote a song inspired by her sister after revisiting old photographs.
“I intend to record it one of these days,” she said quietly. “She’s with us all the time. But it was particularly poignant because I’m now well past the age she was when she died. I thought about what she must have been feeling and going through.
“She was the one everybody looked up to. The firstborn. The one we looked to for inspiration. When she died, it was a huge blow.”
Before committing fully to music, Jordan held a variety of jobs, including working as a pastry chef and at pirate radio stations, where she combined on-air work with selling advertising.
“The radio stations depended on ads,” she said. “One of my jobs was selling ads to people who couldn’t even get the station on their radio — working from a small pool of contacts, the local pub or shop.”
She often worked between stations in Longford and Roscommon without the benefit of a car.
“I had two hours to get from finishing one show to starting the other. A couple of times I was still on the side of the road hitchhiking in the rain when the start time was passing me by,” she said, laughing.
By then, however, Dervish had already begun to establish themselves. Formed in Sligo in 1989, the group invited Jordan to join two years later.
“I was ready to join the circus,” she said. “I gave up the day job and dedicated myself to music, because it was the only thing I was really happy doing.”
That commitment came at a personal cost. The demands of touring left little room for conventional domestic life.
“A journalist once said I never got hitched because I was married to the road,” she said with a grin. “Instead of one husband, I got five — the band members. I didn’t put in for the divorce yet.
“There might have been opportunities, but the music always won out.”
One of the most high-profile moments in the band’s career came in 2007, when they represented Ireland at the Eurovision Song Contest with They Can’t Stop the Spring, co-written by journalist John Waters.
“That feels like a lifetime ago now,” she said. “It was a massive experience — but absolutely terrifying as well. The singers had to perform live. There was no safety net.”
Dervish finished last in their semi-final, receiving five points from Albania — a result Jordan accepts with philosophical calm.
“The results weren’t what they could have been,” she said. “But there are no regrets. You roll with the punches.”
In the years since, the band’s reputation has only grown, reflected in collaborations with an eclectic range of artists including Steve Earle, David Gray, Imelda May and Brendan Gleeson.
“All of them were pinch-yourself moments,” she said. “Technology means you don’t always meet people in person when recording, but the connections are still meaningful.”
Steve Earle, for example, contributed to their album remotely, performing The Galway Shawl on their 2019 release The Great Irish Songbook.
“People carry Irish songs in their hearts,” she said. “It might not fit their own albums, but it’s something they love. David Gray, for example, chose Andy Irvine’s The West Coast of Clare. He had a deep connection to it.”
The project brought together a remarkable cast of contributors, united by a shared affection for Irish music.
“Imelda May sang Molly Malone. Brendan Gleeson performed The Rocky Road to Dublin. They were wonderful to work with. We spent time together, laughed, shared stories. Those are special memories.”
The wider tradition of Irish music, Jordan believes, has always been sustained by such shared experiences — and by a deep well of storytelling.
She acknowledges that earlier generations of musicians, from The Dubliners to The Pogues and The Chieftains, lived more turbulent lives on the road.
“I’ve plenty of stories myself,” she said with a smile, “but I’m not about to tell you them. Nothing like drunken brawls — just good fun.”
She pauses, then adds modestly: “Compared to them, we’d only be in the ha’penny place.”
She believes the culture surrounding Irish musicians has evolved significantly since those earlier decades.
“The drinking culture has quietened down a lot since the 60s and 70s,” she said. “Back then it was more acceptable. Things are different now.”
Britain, she added, has played an important role in sustaining Dervish’s career. The band were described by BBC Radio 3 as an “icon of Irish music” and received the BBC Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019.
“The BBC have been very good to us,” she said. “We’ve done a lot of work in England and Scotland over the years, as well as America.
“When you’re playing places like Glastonbury or Cambridge, you enter people’s consciousness. They remember you.”
Despite the accolades, Jordan remains grounded — and slightly amused by the idea of sudden success after decades of steady work.
It has been a long journey from sing-song gatherings in Roscommon kitchens to international stages and American television screens.
But for Jordan, the motivation remains unchanged.
“It was never about chasing success,” she said. “It was about the music.”
And now, after nearly four decades, the world may finally be catching up.
