Attempting to sum up the Festival Interceltique de Lorient in one blog post is not an easy task (as anyone who has been to the festival will know!); over 800,000 festival-goers hit the Breton city of Lorient during the ten day musical ‘marathon’, with over 3,500 artists performing day, and night. I will just make myself content with scratching the...
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Last September I received a phonecall asking me to sing on an episode of 'Coast' on BBC 2: I happily obliged! I ended up getting slightly more than I bargained for though, as I was also asked to present the feature, which lasts around 10 minutes long. The programme, which is about the Irish Sea and comes from a few...
Read MoreI was pleased to have been asked to feature in the Summer 2015 edition of Celtic Family Magazine, an internationally recognised print and digital publication with distribution in the US and Canada. The street date for publication was on 21st July 2015 – I’m really looking forward to getting my copy in the post as there looks to be a...
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I’m not one to get nervous on stage, but this July I found myself slightly aflutter… I wasn’t performing, and nor was I about to, but I had been asked by Sarah from the wonderful band Flook to light candles on a cake and bring it on stage to birthday boy Ed Boyd during their concert in Yn Chruinnaght festival...
Read MoreHarrup! It will soon be round two of our touring time with Aon Teanga:Un Çhengey, and this time we will have our brand new album with us, before the official release date in September! Eoghan - the Irish contingent in Aon Teanga:Un Çhengey - and I will be heading straight up to the Isle of Mull for our first gig,...
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Last month while a heat wave swept across the British Isles, the five of us in Nish As Rish donned our thickest scarves and mittens for a two week tour in Arctic Norway. We had been invited to give concerts to sixth form students across the Lofoten Islands and Vesterålen by Den Kulturelle Skolesekken, a national initiative run by the...
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London bound! I'm delighted that the Ruth Keggin band, Aon Teanga and the Friel Sisters from Donegal will be headlining the Gaelic Voices Festival, performing in a grand concert in the London Irish Centre in Camden on Saturday 16th May at 5pm. It will be the premiere of material by Aon Teanga - the inter-Gaelic song project featuring myself, Scottish...
Read MoreNext month I'll be heading off for a two week tour in the beautiful Lofoten Islands, Norway with the folk-roots collective Nish As Rish. Our tour is part of DKS ('Den kulturelle skolesekken) - a national initiative that brings professional musicians and visual artists into schools. It's fantastic that Norway really recognises the intrinsic value of arts and culture, as...
Read MoreI'm always game to try new things (no pun intended!) and so was intrigued when I was approached to write an anthem for the 2015 ConIFA Euros tournament, which takes place in Budapest this June. Not being a football buff, I wasn't initially aware of ConIFA, but I soon found out that it stands for Confederation of Independent Football Associations....
Read MoreIt doesn’t seem a moment since I was preparing for my first album launch on the Isle of Man, but in fact a whole year has passed and ‘Sheear’ is one year old today! I’m spending its birthday by travelling to York, where I studied music at University and met fellow musicians David Pearce (guitar) and Vanessa McWilliam (double bass)....
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