Music

Irish band Cardinals blends fact and fiction on 'Masquerade'

WSHU | By Raina Douris,

Published August 21, 2026 at 7:00 AM EDT

The greatest, most enduring stories feel alive. Think of the ones that get told over and over, like The Odyssey, Grimms' Fairy Tales or even a notorious family legend passed down through generations.

With stories like these, the details might change along the way. They may not be entirely accurate retellings. What matters is capturing the essence. And as you'll hear in today's interview, that's how the Irish band Cardinals approaches songwriting.

Coming up, Cardinals frontman Euan Manning talks about making music that feels real, and about blending fact and fiction on the band's new album, Masquerade, whether drawing from personal experience or the history of the band's hometown of Cork.

Set List

"Masquerade"
"She Makes Me Real"
"I Like You"

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. Our digital producer is Miguel Perez. World Cafe's engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.

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Music World Cafe

Raina Douris

Raina Douris, an award-winning radio personality from Toronto, Ontario, comes to World Cafe from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), where she was host and writer for the daily live, national morning program Mornings on CBC Music. She is also involved with Canada's highest music honors: Since 2017, she has hosted the Polaris Music Prize Gala, for which she is also a jury member, and she has also been a jury member for the Juno Awards. Douris has also served as guest host and interviewer for various CBC Music and CBC Radio programs, and red carpet host and interviewer for the Juno Awards and Canadian Country Music Association Awards, as well as a panelist for such renowned CBC programs as Metro Morning, q and CBC News.

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Kimberly Junod

World Cafe senior producer Kimberly Junod has been a part of the World Cafe team since 2001, when she started as the show's first line producer. In 2011 Kimberly launched (and continues to helm) World Cafe's Sense of Place series that includes social media, broadcast and video elements to take listeners across the U.S. and abroad with an intimate look at local music scenes. She was thrilled to be part of the team that received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award for excellence in music programming. In the time she has spent at World Cafe, Kimberly has produced and edited thousands of interviews and recorded several hundred bands for the program, as well as supervised the show's production staff. She has also taught sound to young women (at Girl's Rock Philly) and adults (as an "Ask an Engineer" at WYNC's Werk It! Women's Podcast Festival).

See stories by Kimberly Junod