What Ifs

I enjoy theorising and whatnot, so I thought I’d make a thread of our greatest “what ifs” when it comes to CW. Here’s some of mine:

1. What if Hannah had stayed longer?
I feel like Hannah leaving so soon was a massive missed opportunity, as she has an incredible voice (listen to ANÚNA’s The First Day to hear her as a soloist) and she doesn’t seem to have done much since then. Obviously, Hannah staying longer does mean that Mairéad C wouldn’t have come back, which is sad, but this does have Hannah being our token classical singer member, like how Mairéad is now. Interestingly, I feel like although Muirgen is technically Mairéad’s replacement, I think she’s much more Éabha’s replacement in spirit, and I think Hannah would then be Mairéad’s replacement in spirit. Mairéad ending up replacing Hannah after the 2022 Symphony tour only furthers my point. Hannah staying would also mean that we would’ve had the 20th anniversary lineup sort of be a joining of the old members with the brand new, which I feel would be wonderful symbolically.

This is, of course, assuming that Emma would have still replaced Megan when Megan left. It’s possible that we could’ve had Mairéad come back to replace Megan. This would presumably cause quite the butterfly effect, where we neither would’ve gotten Emma nor Caitríona joining us. And given that we generally have the singers divided into “Celtic” and “Pop/Classical” singers, this means we would’ve either had Hannah or Mairéad being sort of the crossover one, similar to how Lisa L or Megan were.

2. What if David Downes never left?
I don’t quite know this one for myself, all I know is that Destiny would’ve been very different.

I’ll be back later with more, but I’m out with my family so this is all I can muster for now.

IDK how to phrase my question, but I have always wondered something like this.

- What if the CW ladies never had children? Or what if CW were all "male", or men raised kids in our society?
You know what I mean. CW has had 21 members. By comparison Celtic Thunder has had only 12 (one due to death), and most of their current members are long-timers (including 2 original members). How long would some of the original members stayed together? How long would the VOA lineup stayed together (Susan, Eabha, Tara)?

IDK how to phrase my question, but I have always wondered something like this.

- What if the CW ladies never had children? Or what if CW were all "male", or men raised kids in our society?
You know what I mean. CW has had 21 members. By comparison Celtic Thunder has had only 12 (one due to death), and most of their current members are long-timers (including 2 original members). How long would some of the original members stayed together? How long would the VOA lineup stayed together (Susan, Eabha, Tara)?

That is an interesting thought. It does bother me how, even in more feminist circles, people act as though women can’t have a career and children at the same time, so I do wish that attitude was different. Granted, performing is pretty different from your average 9-5 job, and many musicians have spoken about the toll it takes on their family lives to constantly be touring.

These sorts of discussions of member changes are always interesting to me because they create a sort of butterfly effect. For example, Alex probably would’ve never left, so we probably wouldn’t have gotten Lisa Lambe. (I can sense @rfcw bursting at the seams at the thought of Alex being in Believe.). Here’s another question: if Alex never left, would we still have a five member lineup? Or would we have gone to four when Lynn left and the Believe lineup would have been Alex, Chloë, Lisa K, and Máiréad N? Though, granted, if none of the members had any kids, we might not have Alex at all, as there would’ve been no need for someone new in 2008 and someone entirely different would’ve replaced Órla. We wouldn’t have had Deirdre, and probably not Hayley as well. We may not have even had Lynn, as Méav’s young family was reportedly a factor in her leaving.

Now, if Lisa K still had her first three kids, I think she still would’ve left sometime after Believe. I don’t view her leaving as being because she had Ellie, but more as her wanting to pursue other paths and being pregnant was a good opportunity to leave, and I think what Lisa K said after she left corroborates that. We may still have gotten her for the Believe tours, but by the time Emerald rolled around, we probably would have Susan.

Speaking of Susan, I think she’d still be gone by now, as thirteen years is a long time, but we still would’ve gotten her for Ancient Land and possibly even Postcards From Ireland as well. We’d also still have Emma and Tara if they never had kids, which makes me rather sad that this didn’t happen as I really miss them 😭 I think that having your favourite member leave a musical group is probably a canon event for most teenagers, though (a member left the KPOP group Enhyphen and the fans have been spiralling), so at least we are fulfilling the plot right now 😔✊.

I’d like to hope that Tara left similar to Lisa K did, using her pregnancy as more of a way to pursue a solo career and not being a SAHM, because I do miss her, but obviously, what’s most important is that she’s happy, and obviously none of us really have any say on what she does with her life (just putting a disclaimer so I don’t sound weird or anything). Emma seems to have gotten back to performing, so hopefully the same could happen for Tara.

Another question is if we would’ve had any members who left for other reasons coming back. Most members who had kids did so after their tenures with CW, but I wonder if we would’ve gotten, say, Éabha returning if she didn’t have kids. I have heard rumours that she said she’d come back someday, but I’m not sure if that’s true or just wishful thinking, but it’s unlikely that it would happen right now as she has three three and under if I recall correctly.