RÓIS / Milkweed

RÓIS (Rose Connolly) is a composer, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and electronic artist from Fermanagh whose music breathes new life into a forgotten Ireland. Blending folk, sean-nós, jazz harmony and experimental electronics, she creates shape-shifting sonic worlds where tradition and innovation meet.

Her acclaimed debut EP MO LÉAN – released in late 2024, written and produced by RÓIS with additional production from John Spud Murphy (OXN/Lankum) – is a concept record, tracing the arc of grief from the chaos of loss to cathartic release. Drawing inspiration from the last surviving recordings of Irish keeners – women who would ‘keen’ a lamenting wail at the side of a coffin during a wake, conveying the communal expression of grief and allowing those suffering a way to release their sorrow – RÓIS samples and honours their voices, reawakening ancient traditions as a force for contemporary healing.

Milkweed are an duo making experimental folk music steeped in myth, memory and the weight of inherited stories. Their latest record, Remscéla, is a haunting and expansive work rooted in the prelude tales of the Táin Bó Cúailnge, an epic of Irish mythology, filtered through the language of Thomas Kinsella’s 1969 translation. This is folk music not defined by genre but by method: fragmentary, reverent and radically interpretive.

Produced by hcmf// supported by Culture Ireland

Presented by hcmf//.

All ages