Interview

Nell Mescal on sibling rivalry, music’s osmosis effect, and figuring out what being an artist means

Creative self-expression came early and easily to the singer-songwriter, who became serious about music while recuperating from traumatic spinal surgery and teasing out her emotions

Songwriter Nell Mescal. ‘I’m not in a TV show with Paul [Mescal, her actor brother] and he’s not on a song with me. We keep it separate and we support each other from afar’

“I think I’ve changed immensely in the past five years,” says Nell Mescal, who doesn’t even have time to offload her backpack before she sits down for a chat. The Maynooth, Co Kildare, songwriter and singer has been resident in London for a few years but is in Dublin to record what she vaguely terms “something” (she isn’t telling) that will see the light of day before the end of this year.

“My songwriting has ...