Why David O’Dowda is on this page

David O’Dowda (b. 27 May 1980, Dublin) is an Irish songwriter, composer and multi-instrumentalist who has been based in Manchester since 1999. Working largely alone from a home studio, he writes melodic, atmospheric music that bridges singer-songwriter intimacy and cinematic instrumental scoring — a sound that has made him one of the most-placed Irish composers in international film, television and advertising.

O’Dowda is a frequent contributor to Velvet Ears, the music supervision house that places original songs into picture, and his catalogue has been licensed to a long list of major productions. His music has appeared in the Netflix series Dark, Ginny & Georgia and Hot Girls Wanted; the Showtime drama Homeland; FX’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia; Netflix’s Queer Eye; and AMC’s The Walking Dead. On the advertising side, his songs have soundtracked global campaigns for IKEA, Boots No.7 and Stella Artois.

His releases include the EPs Look Up (2014), The World Retreats (2015), the Velvet Ears: David O’Dowda album (2016), Velvet Ears: The Fault Lines (2020), Half Life (2021) and The Lines in the Trees (2023). Earlier in his career he was the keyboard player with Sizer Barker, fronted the alt-folk band Table, and toured as pianist for former Maccabees frontman Orlando Weeks on the Gritterman project. He also records as Laoud, a duo project with American vocalist John Lamonica (Robots Don’t Sleep, Polyphonic Spree).

Heritage notes

Family root: irish-born-confirmed.

The directory threads David O’Dowda back to the O'Dubhda clan story via the surname-variants reality — the same family carried these spellings as it scattered. See the septs and the diaspora for the wider pattern, or the Clan DNA Project for the genetic connections being mapped now.