For Those I Love: Ireland's potent new poet of grief

Recalling the delivery of the Streets and the music of James Blake, David Balfe's project is a cathartic document in the wake his best friend's death

• Irish drill, jazz violin and supermarket musicals: 30 new artists for 2021

When the Irish recession of 2008 shattered the country's economy, communities from Dublin's inner city neighbourhoods of Coolock and Donaghmede were struck hard. The frank lyrics of David Balfe, under the pseudonym For Those I Love, illuminate a generation who emerged from the wreckage.

I've been with people whose families had lost their livelihoods because of the recession," says the 29-year-old. At that younger age you don't have the vocabulary, but you see that displacement, and you think: Why are we suffering? Why has this happened to us?'"