As to be expected of someone beloved by Sinead O'Connor and Morrissey, Dublin's Damien Dempsey is a political firebrand. His own disaffected youth made him want to inspire young people so that they might avoid winding up in the same situation, while his obsession with Irish history books made him brutally aware of the sanitised version of the country's past taught in schools. Accordingly, his impassioned acoustic songs lay bare difficult truths about liberty, life and love.