What I Wanted to Put Into The Rim of Ireland (Tír na nÓg)

My life is based in Tokyo now. And yet, whenever I write music, there are moments when the landscapes of Ireland quietly return to me.
Strand Road in Dublin 4, Arklow, the smell of the sea, the grey sky, and that quiet strength that seemed to live so naturally in people’s everyday lives. Even now, from far away, those memories have never truly left me.

Ireland was never simply a country I admired from a distance. It was a place where I actually lived, where I shared time with Irish friends, where we built a music production company together, and where life and creativity were deeply intertwined.
That is why The Rim of Ireland (Tír na nÓg) is not a song written as an outsider imagining a foreign land. It came from the air of that place, the way people walked through life there, and the unspoken feeling I carried with me from those days.

The world now feels increasingly difficult, wherever one looks. And I know Ireland, too, is passing through a painful and challenging time.
Because of that, this song became a way for me to hold onto the image of Irish people moving forward as only they can—looking ahead with dignity, with endurance, and with that quiet fire that does not go out easily. I wanted to write a song about that spirit.

The title Tír na nÓg comes from Irish mythology, from the legendary land of youth. But what I placed into this song was not mythology alone. It was also rain, wind, memory, separation, and the human will to keep walking despite it all. In my mind, the old stories and the lives of real people in Ireland never felt far apart.

When I think of that feeling, one memory always returns to me.
In Shillelagh, I once met a little girl who seemed almost like a fairy. It was only a brief encounter, and yet she looked at me and said, “You will come here again.” There was something strangely still and unforgettable about the way she said it, as though it had come from somewhere older than ordinary conversation.
That moment has remained with me ever since. Perhaps that is why Ireland has never felt like a place that belongs only to the past. In some quiet way, it has continued to live on within me.

The Rim of Ireland (Tír na nÓg) is not a song made only from nostalgia.
I did not write it simply to look back. I wrote it because, from where I am now, my heart still turns toward the people of Ireland, and I wanted to send them something gentle but strong. If an Irish listener were to hear this song and feel that it is not merely a foreign song about Ireland, but something written with a real sense of their lives and spirit, that would mean the world to me.

There are places one continues to walk through inwardly, even after leaving them behind.
This song was born from that kind of memory, and from that kind of hope.