One of the headline shows of this year’s Kilkenny Tradfest sees international singing star, Iarla Ó Lionáird heading the bill on Monday March 18th. Iarla and his band will be ably supported by local up and coming group Burnchurch in the Set Theatre.
A native of Cúil Aodha in the Múscraí Gaeltacht area of West Cork, Iarla has been living with his wife Eimear and family in Inistigoe for over two decades. From his base in the South Kilkenny picture-postcard village, he has travelled the world as lead singer of the Afro-Celt Sound System, before fronting the breakthrough traditional music supergroup, The Gloaming, winning multiple awards for their three studio albums and one live album. More importantly, they gained a faithful live audience, everywhere from Carnegie Hall to their annual sold-out week-long run in Dublin’s National Concert Hall. The band played a fondly remembered concert to a sold-out St. Canice’s Cathedral during Kilkenny Arts Festival in 2014.
Since the group ended its work, which was followed by the sad death of guitarist Dennis Cahill, Iarla has embarked on a series of collaborations with other artists, including Steve Cooney, Una Monaghan, Kevin Murphy, Nick Cave, Peter Gabriel, Donncha Dennehy and Crash Ensemble and other literary and film projects. He has won the Meteor Music Prize, Gradam TG4 and dozens of other folk awards. He also famously appeared in the film blockbuster version of Brooklyn.
As well as teaching in Kilkenny’s Gaelscoil Osraí, Iarla has lectured in Princeton University, the University of Limerick and many other academic institutions and is currently completing a Doctorate in World Music.
For this special Kilkenny performance, Iarla will be joined by pianist and composer Cormac McCarthy, another Cork native, and Galway multi-instrumentalist and cross-genre star, Matthew Berrill.
Playing support on this night will be Danesfort-based group Burnchurch. The group is made up of sisters, Sadhbh and Síofra Ní Chasadaigh and their brothers Éanna and Ruairí, who are part of the next generation of the renowned Ó Casadaigh family. Their cousins include Sibéal N Chasadaigh and Maitiú Ó Casadaigh, both making waves in the tradtional and contemporary music scene in recent years.
In their own right, Burnchurch have won a number of national song competitions and have featured on stages at Electric Picnic, Kilkenny Yulefest and Kilkenny Tradfest. They gained huge attention last year when their composition Ringwalk, was the walk-on song for boxer Katie Taylor’s world title fight in the 3Arena. They perform an exciting blend of traditional music along with their own truly contemporary song writing. They have also garnered a substantial following on social media platforms like Instagram and Tik Tok.
Tickets for the Set Theatre concert are now available, as are the tickets for all the festival’s headline concerts at https://kilkennytradfest.com/tickets/
