The road less traveled has been the favourite stomping ground for Seán Tyrrell and this journey with ‘The Walker of the Snow’ which has been more than five years in the making takes us on another extraordinary musical journey.  Its title track is based on a poem by the 19th century Dublin poet Charles [...]]]>

The road less traveled has been the favourite stomping ground for Seán Tyrrell and this journey with ‘The Walker of the Snow’ which has been more than five years in the making takes us on another extraordinary musical journey.  Its title track is based on a poem by the 19th century Dublin poet Charles Dawson Shanley a mesmerising, ghostly tale set in the Yukon presented in a sparse acoustic style, as are the other songs on this new CD, including Seán’s version of the Tom Paxton classic ‘Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound’ and a hair raising rendition of ‘She Moves Through The Fair’. It was the imagery of Batt O’Connor’s ‘Seal Tamall Ar Strae’ and Seán’s love of the Irish language and his ongoing desire to improve his command of it that has brought this song to the album. He has brought a new lease of life to another old gem ‘You Are My Sunshine’ which will have you dancing around the kitchen.

In the words of Eamonn MC Cann “No other writer or singer in Ireland would have apprehended the shadow much less made substance of this cycle of songs. This is an album to be listened to gently for the enjoyment of its gusto. It deserves the widest possible audience”.

 Siobhán Long Irish Times Review  “Tyrrell wanders through vastly different landscapes, from the suitably wayward and Wildean Reading Gaol to the bittersweet ambivalence of the timely closer, I Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound, borrowed from Tom Paxton’s songbook. Tyrrell’s plaintive vocals have come into their own on this collection, possessing a spare, echoic quality that recalls Ry Cooder’s in Paris, Texas. Tony Trundle partners Tyrrell’s lilting mandola with a perfectly throaty fiddle on The Lark in the Morning – reinvented by Seán’s indefatigable optimism. Here be folk music as it was meant to be: pugilistic at times, all embracing at others. Tyrrell’s appetite for telling it like it is is as unquenchable as ever”.Siobhán Long Irish Times

June 1st  Culturlann McAdam Ó Fiaich Belfast

June 2nd Bog week Letterfrack Hostel Galway

June 7th White Horse Ballincollig Cork

June 8th Seamus Ennis Ctr Naul Co. Dublin

June 9th Clare Island Co Mayo

June 14th  Matt Molloy’s Westport

June 17th De Barras Clonakilty Cork

July 14th Inis Turk Mayo

July [...]]]> May 31st  Sandinos Derry

June 1st  Culturlann McAdam Ó Fiaich Belfast

June 2nd Bog week Letterfrack Hostel Galway

June 7th White Horse Ballincollig Cork

June 8th Seamus Ennis Ctr Naul Co. Dublin

June 9th Clare Island Co Mayo

June 14th  Matt Molloy’s Westport

June 17th De Barras Clonakilty Cork

July 14th Inis Turk Mayo

July 29th TyrrellGlackinBrowne  Phil Murphy Weekend Carrick-on -Bannow Wexford

August 9th St Johns Art Ctr Listowel Kerry

 Close friends for [...]]]> It was well worth being involved if only for the first selection of tunes a pair of the sweetest hornpipes you are likely to hear. But there is a lot more than that as you would expect when you are in the company of such great musicians.

 Close friends for many decades, Seán, Kevin and Ronan have toured and played socially since the early 1980s.  Years of pressure from fans and friends have at last led to them making this recording of songs and tunes.Unsurprisingly, this CD is true to their concert performances – a comfortable balance of gentle and wild pieces, never suffering from that immobilising modern ailment, over-production; just warm, friendly music and song.  The tracks are rounded out beautifully by the delicately responsive accompaniment of three fine musicians, Fergus Feely on mandola, Jimmy Fitzgerald on guitar and Paul O’Driscoll on double bass.

In this my new show, ‘Who Killed James Joyce’  which was  launched at the Cuirt Literary Festival in Galway in April  once again I have returned to the brimming well of Irish poetry and summoned a meitheal of poets, from both living and the dead, to bring home a bountiful literary harvest. Most of [...]]]>

In this my new show, ‘Who Killed James Joyce’  which was  launched at the Cuirt Literary Festival in Galway in April  once again I have returned to the brimming well of Irish poetry and summoned a meitheal of poets, from both living and the dead, to bring home a bountiful literary harvest. Most of these poems have not been previously set to music and from the moment I clapped eyes on them they sung to me.

The poems:

Patrick Kavanagh, Who Killed James Joyce.
James Joyce, Gas From a Burner.
WB Yeats, Host of The air, The Stolen Child.
Mairtin Ó Direáin, Fís An Daill.
Louise Mc Neice, ‘Prognosis’ and Bagpipe Music.
Michael Hartnett, Ballad of The State of The Nation and I Can Read You Like A Book.
Oscar Wilde’s, Reading Gaol, Requiescat.
Padhraig Pearse, Bean tShleibhe ag Caoineadh a Mic.
Seamus Heaney, ‘Poem”

Seán Ó Ríordáin Cúl An Tí.
Rita Ann Higgins, Ode to Rahoon.
Mary O’Malley, Hormones
Connie O Halloran, Hung Out to Dry.
Paul Durcan, Making Love Outside Áras an Uachtaráin.
Phil Gaston, The World is Turning.
Oliver St John Gogarty, Ringsend.