Little could sum up Lisa Hannigan’s charm as perfectly as a metaphor she uses when discussing the rare days when songwriting comes easily; when it flows most naturally out of her and she is able to get a song written “before your tea has gotten cold.” Like the singer herself, the turn of phrase is warm, homely, and distinctly Irish.

Such is the strength of her innocent, maternal presence, that when she says “obviously everyone dabbled in these sort of things in college, but then you’re slightly drunk in college so you say yes to things more readily”, you might already suspect that she is talking about trying her hand at acting rather than anything truly uncouth.

Even when she reprimands us for breaching the fraught ground of her forthcoming third album, which she does not want to “waffle on about” until she has it completed, she does so with an apologetic kindness. She has the kind of voice that, if she were to tell you ‘everything is going to be alright’ as the plane you are sitting in plummets from the sky, you just might believe her.

“I tend to be invited to do things by much braver people than myself,"

 

So, playing the role of a mother in Song Of The Sea - the latest release from Irish animators Cartoon Saloon - is not to too much of a stretch, though she admits that her timidity towards the unknown world of acting meant that it took a little bit of persuasion. “Tom Moore (Director) sort of lured me in with the singing bit and was very kind and encouraging about the talking bit. But I’m so glad that I did it. Working with such lovely, encouraging people at Cartoon Saloon gave me the confidence to at least give it a go.”

The company have been producing charming animation since 1999, appropriating Irish folklore into modern cinema. “I love what they’re doing with folklore. The themes that they cover, they’re quite deep and thoughtful, and it’s important that we don’t lose these things.”

It is quite fitting then that one of her co-stars in the film is Brendan Gleeson - one of Ireland’s acting behemoths whose figure is entrenched in Irish storytellings more recently penned.

“They did ask me at some point did I want to wait until Brendan was there to do my bit! I said no... *laughs*. No, thank you. I don’t think you want your very first acting job to be with Brendan Gleeson in the room. I don’t know if I would have been able for it at all. But it was great to watch it on the screen and for him to be there.”

"I don’t think you want your very first acting job to be with Brendan Gleeson in the room."

 

Song Of The Sea is not the first time the singer’s voice has permeated theatres. In fact, she has been involved in film on a much larger scale. In 2013 and 2014, she provided vocals for two Steven Price-composed soundtracks - Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity and David Ayer’s Fury.

“It came about really organically,” she says of her first foray into the cinematic realm; “I got an email from Steven asking me to do a bit of singing on the soundtrack [for Gravity]. I went into a small garage just outside of London. It was absolutely fascinating to see how he weaves the music through the film and to see how all the different pieces come together.”

However, her Hollywood debut may have gone unnoticed by many. “He treated the voice so much that sometimes it doesn’t even sound like singing. I was struggling to hear myself sometimes. I’d think it was a violin, and then I’d go ‘oh no, there I am!’, because he wanted to make everything sound otherworldly and unnerving.”

This does not seem to trouble Hannigan, who is more comfortable outside of the spotlight than in it, and she certainly felt a bit of anxiety with regards to her first role on the big screen. “I thought that I would be watching it [Song Of The Sea] through my fingers, for my bits anyway! But actually the animation and the story and the emotion of the whole thing carried me through.”

Her cinematic spell does not end with Song Of The Sea. A track recorded by Hannigan and Glen Hansard features in an animated adaptation of The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran’s beloved piece of literature - produced by and starring Selma Hayek. Who needs an entire six degrees of separation when you can connect Gavin Glass to Antonio Banderas in a mere two?

Aaron Dessner of The National, curator of Sounds From A Safe Harbour festival, Cork.

Step three leads to a collaboration with one of modern music’s most creative and prolific entities, Aaron Dessner, best known for masterminding the music of The National alongside his twin brother Bryce and lyricist Matt Berninger.

Hannigan and Dessner play Cork’s Sounds From A Safe Harbour Festival, September 17-20th, presenting them with the perfect opportunity to showcase the fruits of recent writing sessions.

“I tend to be invited to do things by much braver people than myself, and he said ‘why don’t we get together, write a few songs and then do a gig’? And I said ‘Alright, Aaron’.

Despite her ever-present humility, a pattern becomes clear as the interview progresses. A host of extremely talented creative folk are knocking on Hannigan’s door to entice her into collaboration. Thankfully, and no doubt a result of a subtle confidence that has developed over the years as she has stepped out on her own to plaudits and respect from her peers, she is more than willing to oblige them.