Ailbhe Reddy: ‘Being vulnerable is a good thing’

The Dublin singer-songwriter explains why her new album Personal History is an exercise in unearthing fresh creativity from cathartic experiences

Ailbhe Reddy, singer-songwriter: her first album Personal History shows the power of wearing your wounds open. Photo: Fergal Phillips

“I would do my worst gig over again just to be back at a gig,” says Ailbhe Reddy. The Irish singer-songwriter is in the middle of ruefully highlighting a couple of particularly notable onstage catastrophes, one of which came in Dublin, at the much-loved Ruby Sessions acoustic music club.

“I had a new guitar,” she recalls. “I hadn’t connected the strap correctly and it broke off in the middle of a very quiet sad song, ...