Laura Kilty

The tracks Ar Ais, Ais and Aisling are all variations on a theme. The titles are all Irish words (as in, in the Irish language).

I don’t tend to explain my music but as I am feeling drawn to use Irish a lot in titles and lyrics within tracks I am currently writing, I thought it might be of interest to non-Irish speakers to know how to pronounce and to have a definition of the titles.

‘Ar Ais’ is pronounced like you would say the words ‘air ash’ in English. ‘Ais’, again, sounds like ‘ash’. And ‘Aisling’ sounds like ‘ash-ling’.

I wrote these tracks as I was preparing to leave Ireland to come here to the US, saying goodbye in a more final way than I have previously done in all my years of travelling.

The Irish language often doesn’t directly translate- I think that is really reflected in how Irish people express themselves in what is the first language for most of us nowadays in Ireland, English. There can be layers of meanings, depending on context and intonation, within a word or sentence.

I feel these titles express the many layers in terms of what I am referencing and expressing through the music but you need to understand the ‘top layer’ to be able to get to another-

Ais means ‘return’

Ar Ais means ‘to return’ or to go back

Ar can also mean ‘on’, so the title is referencing that the track is based on the track Ais

Aisling means ‘dream’ or ‘vision’

Aisling is also the name of a very important style of poetry- in these poems, Ireland appears to the poet in a vision in the form of a woman

Perhaps understanding the words and then having some context of when I wrote the music will give you new insight into the tracks themselves. Either way, I hope you enjoy listening!

Laura LAIR