How I met my partner: Relationship hits all the right notes for singer DMac

I MET Aoife around the corner from where I grew up in a small Irish pub in The Bronx, NY, called An Béal Bocht.

She was working there and I was performing with one of my old bands. She seemed really cool and I immediately liked her vibe, but I was in another relationship at the time, so I didn’t think much of the meeting.

Over the next year, we got to know each other a bit through the scene at the pub. I played there often and I even went to see her act in a play, as the bar had a little theatre company.

Eventually my old relationship ended, and one fateful night a couple months later, Aoife and I locked eyes at another neighbourhood pub called Mr McGoo’s. I went back to her place that night and, to be honest, I’d say neither of us remembers too much of what happened. We were well-sauced.

After that, we really tried to keep it casual, but the universe had other plans for us. Even when we tried to see other people, we always seemed to find a way to meet up at the end of the night. I also started working at the pub with her which meant more time together.

We became inseparable, though we said we were just friends who hooked up. Even though it wasn’t technically a relationship, I went on a trip back to Cork, where Aoife is from, and I met nearly her whole family.

She has a massive family. It was my first time in Ireland. I had no idea I’d be living there some day.

Even after that trip, we still wouldn’t admit to being a “real” couple. We used to say we “gloved” each other instead of “loved” each other. This led to a series of instances in which we saw one lonely glove left on its own on the street, or the subway or a park bench. The signs were clear. Two is stronger than one. Eventually, we discarded our “glove” for “love.” One thing I love about Aoife is her sense of adventure. She was well travelled, I had barely left the US, so we started travelling a bit, going to Jamaica, New Orleans, Amsterdam, Spain, and back to Ireland several times. I’m glad we did, because the next year the pandemic hit and we were stuck in an apartment in NYC for quite a while.

However, this ended up being a blessing since it forced us to stop working in the service industry and allowed us a great deal of time to focus on our creative endeavours. In 2020 I recorded and released my first EP as DMac Burns, starting a whole new chapter in my musical career. Aoife wrote, directed and starred in a short film called Work, (which she let me do the music for). It was shot in New York during the pandemic. Eventually, the claustrophobia of living like sardines in the city for the pandemic inspired us to move upstate about two hours north of NYC.

I started gigging again, spent a bit of time on the road driving a tour bus for a band, and I learned the inner workings of the music industry. It can be a pretty hollow world, living on the road and dealing with industry vampires. These experiences inspired me to write the songs that would become my latest EP, The Longest Night, that came out this past June. In particular, being away from Aoife for long stretches was tough. My song, Views is really a love letter to her where I question the personal cost of chasing money. Most of the EP is about questioning whether or not the hustle is worth it.

In November 2021, Aoife’s film Work had its Irish Premiere at the Cork International Film festival which brought us back here for a couple weeks. On that trip, I popped the question out in Eyeries by the sea. It was a magical moment. Three months later, she was pregnant with our daughter Saoirse. We were unsure whether to stay in New York or move to Cork. When the farmhouse in West Cork that Aoife grew up in became available for us to live in, it felt like the universe was guiding us to Ireland.

We came back again in May of 2022 for her film to be shown at the Fastnet Film Festival in Schull and decided that we would make the move. So last August, Aoife moved home, very pregnant. I arrived in September. And Saoirse was born in early October in the very same farmhouse where Aoife was born.

Since then we’ve mainly been in new parent mode though I’ve played the odd gig at Connolly’s of Leap and at Ned’s shed in Inchigeelagh in support of the new EP. We are having our wedding in a field in West Cork on Saturday August 12 and there will be a massive crowd of Irish, Americans and a few other nationalities mingling to some incredible music from two great Cork bands.

If I have any advice for someone wondering if they’ve met the one, it is this. Would you move continents for them? If so, then they’re the one.