The acclaimed Irish songwriter gives one of her most cherished songs a new visual life ahead of her appearance in RTÉ One’s Trinity’s Treasures

The music industry is perpetually hunting for the next thing, sometimes so frantically that it forgets a great song does not expire simply because release week has passed.

Eleanor McEvoy understands the longer life of a song better than most. Today, she has released a brand-new official video for “South Anne Street”, returning to a composition whose emotional pull has only deepened in the years since it first appeared on her album Gimme Some Wine.

“South Anne Street” began with one of those encounters that temporarily folds time in on itself. McEvoy unexpectedly met a former college partner whom she had not seen for 30 years. They went for a couple of drinks, talked about the intervening decades and eventually said goodbye once more.

From that fleeting reunion came a song about memory, ageing and the peculiar tenderness of meeting somebody who remembers a version of you that no longer entirely exists.

It is a recognisably Dublin story, grounded in a real street but reaching far beyond it. Most people have their own South Anne Street somewhere: a road, pub, station or doorway capable of returning them to a former life before they have had time to brace themselves.

The song received considerable Irish radio support upon its original release and was subsequently performed by McEvoy on RTÉ’s The Late Late Show. It has since become a firm audience favourite, proving that listeners still respond to songs allowed to move at the pace of human memory rather than the speed of an algorithm.

The new video was directed and edited by Ciaran O’Connor, with photography by Philip Graham, production by Moira Lawless and grading by Dylan Burgess Grant. Niamh Carty provided on-set assistance, with special thanks given to Trinity College Dublin and New Decade Films.

Its arrival is particularly well timed. On Friday, 24 July, McEvoy will appear in Trinity’s Treasures, a new three-part documentary series in which prominent alumni return to Trinity College Dublin to explore its collections, history and cultural legacy.

McEvoy’s episode, dedicated to music, airs on RTÉ One at 8.30pm. The series also features actor Ruth Negga and former senator David Norris.

The Trinity connection runs far deeper than a convenient television appearance. McEvoy studied music at the university before joining the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra as a violinist. She would eventually leave the relative security of orchestral life to pursue songwriting, a gamble that reshaped both her own career and the wider course of Irish popular music.

As the composer, co-performer and producer of “A Woman’s Heart”, McEvoy helped create one of the defining songs in modern Irish cultural history. The album it titled became the biggest-selling Irish album in Irish chart history, but reducing McEvoy’s contribution to that single achievement has always done her wider catalogue a disservice.

Songs including “Sophie”, “Scarlet Angels”, “The Spanish Word for Heart Is Corazón” and “South Anne Street” reveal a writer unusually attentive to the quiet moments around which entire lives can turn. Her work does not require spectacle. It operates through detail, emotional intelligence and the courage to leave difficult feelings unresolved.

More than three decades into her career, McEvoy is not behaving like an artist interested in becoming a heritage act.

She will appear on RTÉ’s Creedon’s Musical Atlas on 9 August, followed by the release of her new single “I’m On A Mission” on 10 August. After performing at Electric Picnic on 29 August, she begins a ten-date German tour in September and an extensive twenty-date UK tour in November.

In March 2027, she returns to Australia for the Port Fairy Folk Festival, with further Australian dates still to be announced.

That international schedule would be formidable at any stage of a career. After more than 30 years of writing, recording and touring, it speaks to the durability of McEvoy’s work and to the audience she has built without surrendering control of her own artistic direction.

The release of the “South Anne Street” video is therefore more than a nostalgic return to an older song. It is a reminder that catalogues are living things. Songs gather new associations, find new listeners and occasionally return to their creators carrying meanings that were not present when they were written.

“South Anne Street” began with two people meeting again after 30 years. Its new video allows the song itself to do something similar: to return, changed by time, and introduce itself all over again.

Watch Eleanor McEvoy’s official video for “South Anne Street”:

Eleanor McEvoy appears in Trinity’s Treasures on Friday, 24 July at 8.30pm on RTÉ One.

For forthcoming releases, tour dates and tickets, visit www.eleanormcevoy.com.