Songs, paintings and stories from an Irish life in Australia.
I'm Jack O'Leary. I was born in Ireland and I live in Northern New South Wales. I sing, I paint, I tell the stories that come attached to both, and I bring musicians together for sessions and nights out that people talk about afterwards.
Music & live performance
Solo, as a duo, with a band, or the full four-piece show. Ballads, traditional songs and the talk between them.
Hear it
The Art of the Songs
Paintings made from music. Originals and prints, each one carrying the song it came out of.
See the work
Sessions & venue programming
Running traditional sessions and putting the right players in the right rooms, week after week.
How it worksEvery painting here began as a song
Not all of the work — but this part of it started that way. A tune would arrive with a colour attached, and it seemed daft to leave it only in the air.
Finding Magic
Majestic Theatre, Pomona
Four players, Irish music, story and song. Fiddle, mandolin, bouzouki, guitar and bodhrán, and whatever gets said between the tunes.
An Irish life, lived a long way from Ireland
I learned the music at home, by ear and in company, the way most people do who end up doing it for good. I brought it out here with me. The painting came later and came out of the music — not alongside it.
Most weeks I'm either on a stage, in a room full of musicians working out what to play next, or in the shed with paint on my hands. It's the same job as far as I'm concerned.
More about the work