The Folk Centre Column: Welcome to the pleasure dome.

he All-Ireland Fleadh should be getting into full swing about the time this magazine hits the shelves. If you’ve picked up your copy of hotpress early, you might still be in time to race down to Clonmel to catch what should be a doozy of an opening concert when the brilliant US-based fiddle-player Eileen Ivers joins forces with Mícheál Ó Suilleabháin at The Dome on Thursday the 26th. Also appearing in the performance are Niall Keegan, Sandra Joyce, Mel Mercier and the Tipperary Millenium Orchestra.
And if you’re still in the mood for music after that, make your way on to Cork for the 25th annual Beamish Cork Folk Festival, taking place from August 31 through September 5. This year’s lineup is as packed as ever with such treats as a ‘Celebrating 25 Years’ concert presented by Peadar Ó Ríada, featuring John Spillane, Paddy Keenan, Jimmy Crowley and Noel Hill; assorted singing sessions, including one entitled ‘Songsmiths’ with Katell Keineg, Paul Tiernan, Mary Greene, Gavin Moore and Tommy Sullivan; a storytelling evening; a set dance workshop; a fiddle class with Matt Cranitch; a lecture by Tomás Ó Canainn on ‘The Legacy of Seán Ó Ríada’; songs and stories for children; special concerts devoted to the box, pipes and fiddle; and appearances by Emer Mayock, Seán O’Driscoll, Larry Egan and John Neville, Liz and Yvonne Kane, Spencer Bohren, The Abbey Céilí Band, Niall Vallely, Bert Jansch, Suzanne Joubert and Declan Sinnott, Ger Wolfe and the New Skylarks, Líadan, Capercaillie, Karan Casey, Nuada and many more.
Speaking of Nuada, they’re having a very busy time of it between the above-mentioned Cork Folk Festival appearance, a Gig Rig slot at the Fleadh, and before that a special show at the Rose of Tralee festival. The week of gigs will have been something of a reunion for the group, as Tralee native Daithí Kearney (banjo, mandolin), who’d been performing regularly with Siamsa Tíre, is just back from the Interceltic Festival in Lorient, France, while fiddler Jeremy Spencer was flying in from Naron, Northern Spain, where he’d been performing as part of a summer-long tour of Irish festivals in Europe. Completing the lineup are multiple champion flautist Michael King and his brother, recently crowned Munster Senior Accordion Champion Pádraig King. It was the first Tralee appearance for the group since the highly successful launch last March of their album Open The Door For 3. For more information, see www.nuadamusic.com.
Not to be confused with Nuada is Téada, the band founded a few years ago by Sligo-born All-Ireland fiddler Oisín Mac Diarmada. They’re touring in the States at the moment, taking in all the major Irish festivals there (including the Milwaukee IrishFest), and will be fitting in a Dublin show at the Temple Bar Music Centre on September 1, before heading out to the US again on the 3rd. Other upcoming shows in Ireland include an appearance at the IMRAM Literary festival on October 1, to be held in the Edmund Burke Theatre, Trinity College Dublin, and a performance at the Oireachtas in Letterkenny on October 28. For more info, visit Teada official web-site
The fifth annual Gig’n The Bann Irish and Ulster-Scots Music and Dance Festival takes place in Portglenone, Co. Antrim, over the weekend of September 3-5, with concerts featuring Kieran Goss, Danú, the St. Laurence O’Toole Pipe Band, Beoga, Craobh Rua, Bobby Speers and Swinging Fiddles as well as an all-Ireland pipe band event, sessions, workshops, a bicycle race and even a water-skiing exhibition! See Gig n The Bann official web-site for further details.
The Best For The West concerts run by Mary and Petr Pandula in Doolin are back in full swing: among forthcoming events are concerts by The Dunne Family, 80-year-old West Clare singer Peggy McMahon, Paddy Keenan and Tommy O’Sullivan. See the full programme at Magnetic Music official web-site

Seán Tyrrell has just started a regular residency at the Róisin Dubh in Galway on Sunday afternoons from 5pm to 7pm: “A return to where it all started out for me pre-Cry Of A Dreamer days,” he writes. “Again, we will have surprise guests but no one will know until the day. So it’s going to be ‘Fuck it, I missed it! Do you know who was in the Róisin on Sunday with Tyrrell?’ ... There are other residencies beginning to build in Ennis, Kilfenora, Waterford and Boyle and the nice thing about them is there is no cover charge – so any other nice places interested in having Fergus and myself, just give me a call.”
Soon to be heading over to Ireland for a few dates are the folk duo of Ciaran Dorris and Heather Innes, whose new album Waiting For The Calm is due for release on September 3. The pair met up through the Belfast folk scene in the 1980s, since which time Ciaran has moved to Glasgow and Heather has relocated to Blairgowrie in Perthshire. They’ve performed together at a number of UK folk clubs and festivals and showcased at the Folk Alliance in Nashville. During their Irish tour, they’ll be teaming up with Sandra Hughes and Michael Hickey of Masked Theatre, based in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, who make their own masks out of papier-mâché, gourds and hand-carved wood. Catch them all live at the St. John’s Arts & Heritage Centre in Listowel on September 8, the Briery Gap Cultural Centre in Macroom on the 9th, Village Arts Centre in Kilworth, Co. Cork, on the 13th, the Tigh Fili Arts Centre in Cork on the 15th and the Town & Country Club in Magherafelt, Co. Derry, on the 17th. For more info, see Clunie Music official web-site

Music Network’s ‘Best of Irish’ autumn tour is due to kick off shortly, and this time round the focus is on the polkas and slides of West Kerry and the Dingle Peninsula. Joining singer, box player and Geanntraí presenter Breanndán Ó Beaglaoich will be three stalwarts of the Kerry music scene: uilleann piper Eoin Duignan, Éilís Kennedy on vocals and whistles, and Jon Saunders on guitar. Funded by the Arts Council, the tour includes dates in Buncrana, Monaghan, Drogheda, Virginia, Kilworth, Clifden, Ferbane, Dublin, Newbridge and Corofin, beginning on September 15 and finishing up on the 25th. For further information, visit Music Network official web-site

Musicians and singers with news to share can e-mail Sarah on [email protected]