Name: Aidan Padraig O'Mahoney
Age: 28
Face claim: Andrew Hozier-Bryne
Species: Half-Fae
History:Jazz music is how it starts, or at the very least, that's when you start to pay attention. Your mam plays jazz standards from a record player every single day. She never plays it around your daid, for reasons you don't understand at the ripe old of four years of age... But it's something that belongs to the two of you. You love the sounds of the swinging piano coming through the sounds of her record player, telling her you want to be able to make that noise. She shushes you, patting your head gently and says that they will talk about it another day. When your daid comes home, the music changes to something more... well, traditional but you love it all the same. To Irish jigs and fiddle melodies excitedly dance around the house, giggles escaping your lips. Your daid sits upon his rocking chair, a small smile upon his face watching you be enthralled in the music. You pause momentarily though as a novel idea pops into your head before jumping up in down in excitement as you get an idea.
"Ba mhaith liom veidhlín a imirt! Ba mhaith liom veidhlín a imirt!" I want to play the violin! I want to play the violin! is the chant that tumbles out of your lips, spinning and marching circles around your daid's chair where he's attempting to read the day's newspaper. He steadily ignores you for a few moments before letting out a drawn-out sigh.
"Má fhaigheann tú ceachtanna, an ndéanfaidh tú dramhaíl orthu?" If I get you lessons, will you waste them? is his tired response, but your eyes light up.
"Níl, níl!" No! No! You reply, with all the devotion a four-year-old can muster. There is nothing you want more in this moment to play the violin and make the pretty noises that come out of the radio speakers into the living room.
"Beidh mé ag smaoineamh air." I'll think about it he replies with a hum, tilting his head to the side before going back to reading his paper. [p]
Your daid enrolls you in violin lessons a few weeks later and... well, at first it goes as well as you would expect giving a violin to a preschooler would go. Your mam is the backbone to you continuing to play, really. Every day she sets some time away for you to practice and sets a schedule so you wouldn't even forget. It becomes as regular to you as the simple act of going to church on Sunday or saying grace before your dinners. Years and years from now you would thank her for having you stay with it. For being the training wheels that helped you get your start within music.
Nevertheless, you learn quickly. By the time you're enrolled in Parochial school and attempt to join the orchestra, you're placed with the students who have already been playing as long as you have… Only they started playing when they were a few years older than you were. It's off-putting at first, being surrounded by boys and girls who are around three years older than you and fluently speak a language you're just only beginning to try to understand. It’s a large chasm to cross when you're only six years old but musical notation doesn't change between languages. It’s a constant. Even if you can’t read understand English well enough to know what’s going on in your mathematics class, you know what fortes, crescendos and fermatas are. You don't have many friends in the orchestra but... well, you get to play in front of a crowd now too. There was nothing else like it, being the smallest one in the violin section playing with the big kids while your mam and daid sat there and listened to the group. When you stand up at the end to give a little bow, you're grinning so wide you feel as if it will split your face too and you can see your daid laugh before grinning back at you just as wide.
You're twelve years old when you start to notice new things. You start to notice yourself shoot up over the classmates that used to seemingly tower over you. You start to notice the girl with the strawberry blonde hair playing the cello, her lithe fingers moving magnificently over the strings. And, perhaps most importantly, you start to notice the sounds of the "less" traditional instruments. It's a boy at school [s]strawberry blonde hair and lithe fingers just like the girl too, which you just tell yourself is a coincidence[/s] that brings an acoustic guitar one day during one of your lunch periods. He doesn't know how to play it, his fingers plucking away at what you learn later was supposed to be Smoke on the Water, but you still watch awestruck. Five minutes to the end of the lunch period, you finally work up the courage to ask him if you can play it. He hands it over and you have time to let your fingers run over the strings and strum just for a few moments before classes restart. Those few moments though were enough for you to get yourself hooked. You find yourself in front of your Daid again, in a situation not so different than the one that had arose eight years earlier.
“Daid, an bhfuil giotár orm?” Dad, is there any way I can have a guitar? you ask, your voice filled with excitement when he's finally home from a business trip and sitting in his rocking chair.
"Beidh mé ag smaoineamh air." I'll think about it he replies again, waving his hand to shoo you away. Your shoulders slump and you sulk away, expecting nothing to come of this exchange.
The next time he returns from a business trip, he's holding a guitar case in hand.
You graduate parochial school. You get accepted into University of Manchester. You move away from Galway. And really, that's where the problems start. You’re a business major, something that's terribly dull and it's a shame that you're now dedicating your life to it. However, with how it is your first time away from home for any extended period, so you attempt to give yourself something akin to wiggle room now that you’re away from your parents watchful eyes.
You join a community blues band, filled with gentlemen and women who are at least twice if not three times your age. It’s a small unorganized group and really, it’s more of a Thursday night social event than anything, but you can’t find it within yourself to complain about a reason to pluck away at guitar strings. The lead singer of your group, a woman whose voice evokes memories of listening to Billie Holiday with your mam, is perhaps the most welcoming to your young soul. However, she never asks anything about your education and… you welcome it. Until one day, near the end of your first term, she finally asks what your field of study is. Business, you state, you're a business major and with a heavy heart you timidly admit that you will have no time next term for trivialities such as this group. The phrase “trivialities” feels so bitter on your tongue, but the phone call from your Daid the night before still rings in your ears. You have a talent, the blues singer says as her eyebrows furrow together, why waste your life away on business? And you pause. Music, while it had been constant through your life had never been in the cards as a possible career path. You open your mouth to say something, only to feel your voice die in your throat before it can escape. I'll think about it, you reply awkwardly after half a beat, before escaping with your guitar in your hand.
Through final examinations and during the winter break back home at Galway, you find yourself consumed with the thought. Could you really do it? Did you really have a chance to work as a musician? You ask your mam about it, who stared at you with wide eyes before
"Aodhán Padraig Ó Mathúna, is fearr leat a insint dom cad tá tú ag smaoineamh!” Aidan Patrick O'Mahoney, you better tell me what you're thinking!" escaped her lips.
"Níl mé ag iarraidh gnó a dhéanamh. Ba mhaith liom ceol a dhéanamh.” I don't want to do business. I want to make music. You say, shoulders slumping as Mam lets out an exasperated sigh.
"Ní bheidh do athair sásta" Your father will not be happy she says to you. You remain silent as the words "I know he won’t" echo within your mind.
It doesn't go as bad as your mam seemed to fear. Daid's willing to compromise as long as you keep up your studies in business subjects outside of your major. Afterall, he reminds you, you’re poised to take over his position in the family company and they can forgive a music major as long as you have a degree… and well, still know what you’re doing regardless.
You make it two years and a half at University of Manchester before you drop out and return to Galway. Well, you really dropped out before you could fail out. Mam and Daid would take it better that way, you assumed. School's just a load of rubbish, all of it and all the writing you've done is so much better when you aren't bogged down by writing in Gaeilge. Daid isn't pleased but Mam seems as if she's been expecting this. Has been acting like it since you told her that you were changing your degree over two years ago. Five more years pass by where you work at your family's company while trying to figure out what you're supposed to be doing with your life. Five long years where you feel like you're only two steps above going insane. But eventually you find that calling you seem to be looking for in the form of a Celtic punk band. Legless Goose, trying to imitate Flogging Molly's past glory forms in the O'Mahoney's basement in the January of 2017. In July of 2017 you move out of your parent's house, after getting into a fight with your father over "blasphemous" lyrics he found in a notebook you carelessly left out one day, into a band house. You barely survive, barely making enough money from bar shows and everyone is rowdy drunk, no one is really listening to you guys and- bloody hell, you can't remember the last time your body felt this light. One year later, with promises of a record deal that always seems to be coming soon, your band takes a chance to come to America.
You all don't even last three months.
Legless Goose dies in Boston, when your lead singer walks out, middle finger high in the air, after getting into a screaming match with your drummer. Your fiddler goes back to Galway and your bassist fucks off to god knows where. Thankfully, with a decent amount of money saved from your family's job, you bus across the East Coast trying to find the next big place. You nearly run out of money in New York City. Barely remembering the name of the city from when cousins visited Galway years back, you decide that you need to take time to figure out what you're doing. You sleep outside for three nights, busking on street corners trying to get enough money for a few nights. It... doesn't go horribly and you meet someone who refers you to a guy who's looking for a roommate.
And you contact the guy, praying to any higher power that this won’t end up getting you killed, because you’re out of options other than walking to every apartment in the city and trying to find your cousins.... which really, isn't a realistic choice. You share probably the smallest two-bedroom apartment you've ever seen together and Toby, as you eventually learn your new roommate’s name, locks himself in his room most of the time and the living room almost always stinks of weed. Money is tight most of the time and you’re still busking since you don’t technically have a Green card yet but... you're surviving. And hell, you still feel more alive than you ever did back in Galway.
