Radie Peat is one of the voices of two of Ireland’s most interesting experimental folk groups, Lankum and ØXN, and is about to release her debut solo album.

Willow Garden is a spellbinding murder ballad dating back to the 19th century, telling the violent story of a man facing the gallows for poisoning, stabbing, and drowning his lover, Rose Connelly.

Radie’s solemn delivery, over her insistent acoustic guitar, sobers us to the ballad’s addressing of the horrors of gendered violence: a subject as topical two centuries ago as it is today.

Radie explains the history of the song, “This is a traditional murder ballad, mostly sung in America. There is evidence of its existence in Ireland in 1810 when the tune was noted in the bunting collection, without lyrics, but with the title ‘Rose Connolly’.

“We appear to have lost it since then in Ireland, but it survived very successfully in the Appalachians.”

She adds: “The last verse was transcribed by Matt Kinman from “an old fella” he was living up the mountains with for a while, and I’ve never found it anywhere else. Thanks to Matt for writing it down for me in a dive bar in Sylva, North Carolina.”

Peat describes her role as a folk singer in 2026 as “communicating hundreds of years of other people’s experiences that have been absorbed into the songs from generations and generations before you (and) bind you with a worldliness beyond the sum of your own experience.”

She describes her album, No Human Tongue Can Tell, as “a collection of songs to reassure us that others have been where we are. They are largely songs of female struggle, suffering, strength and endurance. But there are many about love as well, with all the complications that brings.”

Peat plays all the instruments herself and attributes the idea to a documentary she watched in her twenties about Mike Oldfield adopting the same approach to record Tubular Bells.