Conor McGinty’s peace anthem taking off following single’s release

The Derry artist’s song, composed with input from himself, musician Eamonn McKarran and reworked into a new song for them by Derry artist Ben Kelly, was released two days ago.

The song, which has been receiving radio airplay since it was debuted during the One City, One Voice event at Guildhall Square last week, has been three years in the making and came about through Reverend David Latimer’s ‘Pathway to Peace’ Initiative.

As part of this project, video clips from presenter Eamonn Holmes, An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and political leaders including Colum Eastwood and Mary Lou McDonald are being shared each night via Conor McGinty’s social media along with a sample from the new single.

A peace pledge by Martin McGuinness, recorded in the years before his death, will also feature. Mr McGuinness stated in his message: “I pledge to ensure that equality and respect become the bedrock for a new and shared future.”

Speaking about the project, Conor McGinty said: “It started off with Reverend David Latimer. I met him at an event organised by the Pink Ladies three years ago and we talked about doing a young people’s peace anthem. Rev Latimer has gone around and collected peace pledges from 400 schools and Maurice Harron is creating a 15 foot steel tree to be placed at the new entrance at Ebrington, and each leaf is one of the peace pledges.

“We have been working away at the song for the past three years. David picked out some of the pledges and we picked out some and wrote a song around them. We passed that on to Ben Kelly and he wrote his song for us, and then Rev. Latimer arranged for us to go to Niall Horan’s studios at Camden Recording in Dublin and we recorded it there.

“The song has been getting radio play,and Q Radio are playing it twice a day. It’s exciting, and different. I’m used to releasing ballads, so it’s the first time I’ve recorded anything this upbeat. Feedback has been brilliant.

“We will be doing the music video over the next two and a half weeks filming with Donal O’Doherty and hope to have the video out by June. At the end of the music video the famous faces and schools will feature and all who supported it will be featured saying, ‘Moving On, No Going Back’.

“We are showing Peace Pledges every night this week. Last night was Eamonn Holmes and each night will be a different person.”

The Famous Faces peace pledge videos and more on the song can be found on ‘Conor McGinty Music’ Facebook and Instagram pages and Conor Mc Twitter account.

Conor McGinty’s ‘Moving On (No Going Back)’ is available to purchase now on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon and other usual platforms.