Legendary Irish blues guitarist Pat Farrell to be honoured with 3Olympia show next week

Revered Dublin blues guitarist Pat Farrell will be honoured with a special ‘Blues Extravaganza’ gig in the 3Olympia on Thursday, 6 June, featuring some of Ireland’s leading blues musicians.

The Remembering Pat Farrell line-up includes:

His band The Business, featuring original members James Delaney and Fran Breen along with past members and special guests.

Brush’s Skid Row, who has written a song specially for the show.

Ladies in the Blues, the revue which has toured throughout Ireland and appeared at the Glastonbury Festival. It will be their first performance in Dublin City

The Only Ones’ John Perry. Best known for his solo on ‘Another Girl, Another Planet’, he’s often cited by Johnny Marr as an early influence.

Mik Pyro’s Blues Cartel, along with house bands led by Jimmy Smyth and Brian Harris along with many other great singers and musicians will also be taking part .

Highly-regarded within the Irish blues scene, Farrell played across the island for over fifty years, often labelled as the ‘blues guitarists’ favourite blues player.’ He played twin guitars in several bands with Jimmy Faulkner, Red Peters and The Floating Dublin Blues Band.

Brush invited Farrell to join Skid Row following Gary Moore’s departure. He also played with Rob Strong and The Rockets.

In 1981, Farrell formed The Business Blues Band with Don Baker, Errol Walsh, Tommy Moore and Fran Breen, playing shows in London and touring Russia. While the personnel changed over the years, the group kept playing the just months before Farrell’s passing in January 2023 following a struggle with prostate cancer.

In the late 2000s he accompanied Mik Pyro’s Republic of Loose at The Academy – prompting Pyro to invite the guitarist to be part of his newly formed Blues Cartel.

Farrell is also the only guitarist to ever play on an Enya album, featuring on the track 'My! My! Time Flies' from her 2009 album, And Winter Came.

Tickets to Remembering Pat Farrell start from €30 and are available now via ticketmaster and the 3Olympia Box Office.