Paddy Keenan (accompanied by John Francis Flynn & Alan Burke), Poor Creature and Iona Zajac

Show Details:

As one of the greatest traditional instrumentalists of all-time Paddy Keenan needs no introduction really. Paddy Keenan was born in Trim, Co. Meath.The Keenans were a Traveller family steeped in traditional music; both Paddy’s father and grandfather were uilleann pipers. Paddy himself took up the pipes at the age of ten, playing his first major concert at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, when he was 14. He later played with the rest of his family in a group called The Pavees. After a period time touring and busking around Europe and the UK Paddy hooked up with Mícheál O’Domhnaill and his sister Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill, fiddler Paddy Glackin, and accordion player Tony McMahon. A little later flute player Matt Molloy came on board. Shortly after, Donal Lunny was asked to listen to the six. Liking what he heard, he joined as well, and the loosely-knit band began calling itself Seachtar, the Irish word for seven. Seachtar soon morphed into The Bothy Band, a group that changed the face of Irish music combining a driving rhythm section with traditional Irish tunes.

Paddy’s style continued to mature in the intervening years since the break-up of The Bothy Band as he pursued a solo career. He has brought traditional music to audiences around the globe, playing at festivals including the Rainforest World Music Festival in Borneo, CeltFest Cuba in Havana, and concert tours across Japan, Europe, Australia, and North America. He travelled to Mali, west Africa, to embark on a 3,000 mile-long journey across the desert to perform at Le Festival au Désert, the world’s most remote music festival, near Timbuktu. Paddy’s contributions to traditional Irish music were honoured in 2002, when he received the TG4 Gradam Ceoil Musician of the Year award, which is presented to musical heroes of the modern age, and in 2011 by the Irish Music Association, with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Poor Creature are Cormac MacDiarmada (Lankum) and Ruth Clinton (Landless). They perform new interpretations of old songs, accompanied by viola, guitar, synth and theremin. Drawing inspiration from Irish and American traditional music their music has dark and dreamy undertones and features themes of love, loss and the supernatural.

Iona Zajac is truly one-of-a-kind, especially when it comes to her live performances. Her music seamlessly blends a number of musical genres with an authentic grit that captivates her every audience. Iona is a true musician, as well as talented poet. With the second half of 2022 being spent mainly on the road, touring with John Francis Flynn, Arab Strap, Idlewild, Hamish Hawk, Shawn James and Billy Nomates, in addition to sold out shows with Eliza Shaddad, Cassandra Jenkins and Richard Hawley, Iona Zajac just returned from her U.S debut at SXSW in Austin, Texas. She has recently come off tour with Anna B Savage and working towards her debut album.