Imelda May announced for Jools Holland's Annual Hootenanny

Imelda May has been named in the lineup for this year's Jools Holland's Annual Hootenanny.

The Irish singer will perform Billie Holiday’s ‘Now Baby Or Never’ alongside Holland.

Other artists named on the lineup include Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood, Olivia Dean, Lulu, Jessie J, Craig David, Heather Small, The Kooks, Joe Webb, David Hermlin and Ruby Turner.

May is set to kick off her Raised On Songs and Stories tour in February 2026, with shows across Ireland. She will perform at Dublin's Vicar St on February 9, February 10, February 11 and March 1, with additional shows at Ulster Hall in Belfast on February 16 and February 17.

Recently the singer-songwriter debuted her new 6-part series, Amhráin na nGael, Imelda May: The Songs of the Irish, now streaming on the RTE Player, which explores her journey through the West of Ireland, specifically the Gaeltacht region, delving into the culture of Irish traditional music and language.

"With Irish, the negativity comes from our language being taken off us," she said in a recent interview with Hot Press. "The repercussions of that have been echoing for a long time, making it seem unattractive, backwards, and left behind, as if you're uneducated if you spoke Irish. And that's the view that was given to us for a long period.

“It's time to get rid of the shame that comes with it, because it's not our shame. If you go to any country and they speak a different language than the name of the country, then nine times out of ten there's been colonialism or trauma involved."

Tickets for her Raised On Songs and Stories tour are still available and can be purchased via Ticketmaster.ie.

Jools Holland’s Hootenanny will air on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer on December 31 at 11:30 p.m.