Folk Centre: sweet toot.

Although Na Piobairi Uileann beaver away right throughout the year running small gigs that showcase the talents of Irish pipers, it’s for their annual Ace and Deuce Of Piping show that their name would be best known to the average concert-going music fan.
This year’s show takes place on Saturday May 26th at Liberty Hall, Dublin, with the proceedings kicking off at 8.00pm. The featured performers in this incarnation of the celebration of all things pipe related are Robbie Hannan, Ronan Browne and Peter O’Loughlin, David Power, Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh and Dermot Byrne, Noel Hill and Rosie Stewart.
Having had such a positive response to its free Riches Of Clare concert series over the first two years of its existence, Clare Arts Office has decided to press on with the initiative for a third year. Targeting a lunchtime audience has meant the concerts have reached an audience that may never yet have ventured out into the nocturnal underworld of the session.
This year’s first concert is in the library in Ennistymon on Wednesday May 23rd and it features Tommy and Siobhan Peoples. The series then moves to the County Museum in Ennis where it runs weekly, every Wednesday lunchtime, from May 30 until July 11. On July 18 it picks up the stumps and travels to the library in Sixmilebridge and the following week the performance takes place in the Vandaleur Gardens, Kilrush. The final concert of this year’s series will be in the Community Centre in Ballyvaughan on August 1. The concerts each feature a different line-up, and if you’re unfamiliar with trad going in, you should certainly know your bones from your bodhran coming out the other side.
This year’s Edward Bunting Harp Festival moves out of the confines of the Cathedral City and kicks off with a concert by the Spanish Lady Ensemble on Thursday May 24 in the Bronte Centre, which is a few miles off the Newry to Belfast road. The bulk of the events are happening in Armagh City itself of course, with workshops and presentations taking place in St. Patrick’s Trian from Friday to Sunday. The main concert takes place on the Saturday evening in St. Patrick’s Church of Ireland Cathedral and features Steve Cooney, Laoise Kelly and Flook with Sarah Allen stepping back into her usual role after having taken a couple of months away from gigging to take care of new arrival Maisie.
Harp fans should make a note in their diaries of the Historical Harp Society of Ireland’s fifth Scoil na gClairseach–Summer School of Early Irish Harp, which takes place in Kilkenny from August 22 to August 28. Teaching is on a two-tier system allowing very advanced students and more basic performers to benefit from the tuition on offer. Teachers include local tutors Siobhan Armstrong and Sean Donnelly, Simon Chadwick and Keith Sanger from the UK and Javier Sainz from Spain.
Damien Dempsey’s [pictured] fourth studio album To Hell Or Barbados makes its appearance on Friday June 1, and that evening Damien will be treading the boards in Vicar Street. While the album combines a variety of musical styles, including rock, folk, reggae, and even electronica, the live version will doubtless be pure heart. We’re all familiar with Cromwell’s undertaking to banish the Irish ‘to Hell or Connacht’, but 50,000 Irish men and women were also sent as slaves to work in the plantations of Barbados, and this is the central lyric behind the album’s title track.
The recently launched Ceol Beo live acoustic imprint aims to bring gigs by young (and some not so young) acoustic performers to the stage with the central premise being that you get to see three acts on the same bill. Upcoming shows include Mike Hanrahan and Leslie Dowdall performing with Junah and Caoimhe Hogarty at the Cherrytree in Walkinstown on Thursday May 17, with the same stage hosting the gorgeous Labhaoise Brennan, Stephen Branigan and Minus Circus the following evening. Wednesday May 30th gives Mullingar man Peter Doran a chance to make an impression on the capital as the venue shifts to Aras Chronain in Walkinstown for a show featuring Peter, Junah, Labhaoise Brennan and Ray Heffernan. The following evening back at the Cherrytree it’s the turn of Shayz, Fiach and the world’s hardest working woman, Linda Coogan, to take the stage.
Weighing in with a strange mix of musical backgrounds and a set list that draws on close on a thousand years of musical history, White Raven are one of those acts that look like they might be hard work on paper but end up bucking your preconceptions when you actually hear them. The acappella trio of Kate Dineen, Robert Gretchel and Riatis Grigalis (hailing from Ireland, the United States and Latvia respectively) will be playing a small number of shows in Ireland with fiddler Gerry O’Connor broadening the musical palette. Thursday May 17 sees them in Dundalk’s Spirit Store, they play in the newly refurbished Seamus Ennis Centre in Naul on the following evening and wrap up their flying visit to these shores with a free show in the Hugh Lane Gallery on Sunday May 20 at noon.
Also making a flying visit to these shores, Boston’s resident Meath man Paddy Saul will be playing at the Spirit Store on Sunday May 20 to drum up support for his debut album One Town Tasted. The tour kicks off in Keady on Friday May 18 and he’ll also be playing in Naul on May 19, with a Dublin gig at Crawdaddy on the evening of Monday May 21. From there he’s off to Galway for a Tuesday night show, with shows in Barry’s of Grange on Wednesday 23rd and Matt Molloy’s in Westport on Thursday 24th May.
You’ll need more than a bus pass to catch Kila this summer as they aim to rack up the frequent flyer points with a slew of festivals scattered strategically round the globe.
First up is the World Ceilidh at the Knockengorroch Festival in Scotland on Saturday May 19. They’re off to Switzerland where they play Les Docks in Lausanne on Sunday May 27, back in Scotland for the Feile Cholmchille on the Isle of Mull on Saturday June 9. They return to the UK at the end of June where they play slots at the Aberystwyth Free festival on Saturday June 23 before heading to Glastonbury the following day.
The beginning of July sees them playing at the Quebec Festival D’Ete from July 4 to July 8. In case that has left you feeling unloved they are also playing a couple of Irish shows this summer, most notably in the Spiegeltent in Cork on Tuesday June 19 and at the Midlands festival, which this year moves to the salubrious surroundings of Belvedere House in Mullingar, on Sunday July 29.
And if you need ID to get a drink you may also be able to get in to see one of their children’s shows at the Draiocht Theatre Blanchardstown on Wednesday June 13 as part of the Spreacha Children’s Festival.