US-Ireland Alliance

Irish American Post

Spring/Summer 2011

Irish Musician, American Law Student Equal Success, Marriage

By Kia Namin

In August, 2012, Irish musician Eoin Ó Súilleabháin and American law student Andrea Laidman will be wed with celebrations following in their respective hometowns of Limerick, Ireland, and Buffalo, N.Y. 

When Laidman and other Mitchell Scholars were bused to Michael Ó Súilleabháin's house for an end-of-the-year dinner, she recounted she had no idea who musician Eoin Ó Súilleabháin was. However, that quickly changed. "When I left his home with all the scholars that night, I certainly knew that I had just met someone very special," she recalled.

Having majored in political science and peace studies at Notre Dame, "where everyone becomes Irish sooner or later" she joked, Laidman admitted, "I never sought to go to Ireland specifically, or explore my heritage there, like so many Americans do." However, in 2008, she was one of the twelve students who won a prestigious George J. Mitchell Scholarship through the US-Ireland Alliance. 

The scholarship, named after the former U.S. senator who was instrumental in the Northern Ireland peace process, was founded in 2001. The education honors are awarded annually to a maximum of 12 students to pursue one year of postgraduate study in any discipline offered by institutions of higher learning in Ireland and Northern Ireland. 

It was at the culmination of her time studying anthropology and international development at the National University of Ireland-Maynooth that the Ó Súilleabháin household hosted the dinner where Laidman met her eventual fiancé. "Eoin and I knew nothing of one another before that night," remarked Laidman, now going into her final year of studies at the New York University School of Law. 

Though Ó Súilleabháin could have attempted to swoon the American girl with a ballad, it was the fiancées' mutual enthusiasm in their work with refugees that sparked a conversation. "While I love Eoin's music, it was our other shared interests that brought us together initially," explained Laidman. 

While at Maynooth, she completed fieldwork among groups of UN Program refugees living in Ireland. As the luck of the Irish would have it, Ó Súilleabháin had recently completed a master's degree thesis on immigration in contemporary Ireland.

So, instead of the ballad, he played on their shared interests to bring on the first date. "Eoin invited me back to [Limerick] to attend a conference that he was helping to organize. The conference was about 'welcoming the stranger' in Ireland," reminisced Laidman. 

After the conference, they employed a more romantic setting to realize, as the founder of the Mitchell Scholarship relates it, they were "the same kind of souls."

"After the conference, we went for dinner in a lovely traditional restaurant in a tiny town, called Birdhill, outside of Limerick," said Laidman. "We talked for hours and had a wonderful time together, but I was leaving Ireland to return to the United States just days after-so I was not sure what would follow."

The couple continued to hit it off and undertook the challenge of a long distance relationship. In order to maintain their relationship across the Atlantic, "Skype is the key," she insisted. "We often say we owe the creators of Skype a huge thank you! We don't know where we'd be in the days of only letter-writing."

The relationship isn't all keyboards and computer screens, though. When they are together, the couple loves to cook Asian food and explore the historic whether it's "medieval ruins in Ireland or museums in New York City." 

Though the couple saves time for both leisure and work together, the two have yet to work on the same project for refugees or immigrants. However, they help each other constantly with their writing, Andrea proudly admits that she has even "written a verse in a size2shoes song."

Size2shoes is the product of Eoin and his younger brother, Moley. The band discovered their moniker thanks to a dwarflike American girl Moley was seeing for some time. After the song "size2shoes" was written, their father suggested that be the name of their group. "We thought, 'well, that's quirky and weird enough for what we want to do - so let's go for it', and it's no less strange sounding than Pink Floyd," assured Ó Súilleabháin. 

Eoin and Moley were raised in an absolutely musical household. Their father is Michael Ó Súilleabháin, a past Milwaukee Irish Fest performer who is now a professor of music at the University of Limerick. The duo's mother is the Celtic spiritual singer Nóirín Ní Riain. As for the boys' acquiescence to music, it was all their own choice. "The really amazing thing was that neither of our parents forced any music on us at all," said Ó Súilleabháin. 

In fact, Ó Súilleabháin studied philosophy as an undergrad. Moley, however, was able to bring the beats to size2shoes, literally. The younger Ó Súilleabháin, who studied ethnomusicology and rap culture in Co. Cork, is renowned for his vocal beat boxing skills that have landed him recordings with Bobby McFerrin.

The brothers have created music that has been categorized as inspirational pop and have been compared to Steely Dan, Simon and Garfunkel, and an unplugged Prince, though they admit Michael Jackson has had the biggest influence on their style. "His songs are all about being positive and transforming - can't get enough of it," Ó Súilleabháin emphasized. 

The band has enjoyed popularity in its native Ireland, though Ó Súilleabháin admitted, "The States is the place that we've gotten our most support." 

Though they have "no management or agent or anything like that," they seized an opportunity to work with Russell Crowe who then sent his highest regards to Steven Spielberg. The director's ears couldn't resist the joyful melodies and asked if size2shoes might record a song for his new film coming in 2012, War Horse. 

Last September, the Ó Súilleabháin brothers traveled to Castlecombe, England, to record "Only Remembered" by English composer John Tams, "We still haven't gotten full confirmation that the song will actually be in the movie, so lets hope it doesn't end up on the cutting room floor!," Ó Súilleabháin said. Whether the song is used in Spielberg's film or not, he intimated that just "to be recognized by Steven as artists that he wants to work with, well, that was beyond our wildest dreams."

Everything is still in the earliest stages of planning for the wedding reception, but size2shoes will surely strum out a few songs to celebrate what promises to be the beginnings of a melodious marriage.