The Kilkenny Trad Fest runs from 16 - 18 March

Each year, the Kilkenny TradFest boasts the names of the most interesting trad acts the country has to offer, creating a blend of classic and contemporary musicians and bands. So amongst the medieval architecture, the castle walls and the sloping streets, you’ll find the likes of Zoë Conway and Finbar Furey and down the street, Moxie and Scullion. “I’d love to see Scullion play actually. They’re a band that our mam used to be really into, when she was in college!”

Ye Vagabonds, composed of brothers Brían and Diarmud, are delighted to join such a line-up this year. They take to the stage tomorrow, the 16th of March - to play a sold out gig at the Cleeres Bar and Theatre.

“We’re very excited about our gig and seeing what else happens out there - we’ve heard so much about Cleeres. Every town and city has that one utmost respected bar and Cleere’s is it. We’re delighted we get to be there. But the fact actually have to head off on the Saturday morning to play RTÉ is a bit disheartening,” Brían admits.

“We’ll be playing a chunk of new material off our most recent album and we’re also going to be playing a lot of new material too… At least three, definitely traditional ones that are part of this new album we’re recording, that in itself is mostly traditional work. And one of them mentions Kilkenny so we thought that was appropriate”, he says with a small chuckle. “It’s our first gig of the year and it’s a really good way to kick it off.”

Ye Vagabonds represent the “broad array of new young trad bands” according to Kilkenny TradFest, and are consistently described as half-traditional, half-contemporary like many other Irish musicians. The act of venturing into a new aspect of our traditional genre, while not uncommon is growing in noticeable popularity on the performance scene. So much so, that we end up with a juxtaposed idea of the TradFest being the best place to see this trend in traditional Irish music.

“People have added us to that category along with Moxie who are actually friends of ours! We’re delighted about them being there, we’d recommend seeing their own show. They’re doing very different things in traditional music. Some people think that we do different things ourselves. There’s a bunch of interesting stuff going on in the scene really and the festival is such a collection of all kinds."

Tickets for the festival are available from the main website here.