DUBLIN AFTER DARK

FOR THE lover of trad or roots music - and there are many, many of us out there, despite what the blinkered mandarins in RTE would like to think - Dublin after dark, (and often in daylight hours) is a veritable treasure trove of possibilities whether your preference be the easy informality of a pub session, with guitars, boxes and fiddles flailing away in a corner, or the more structured yet still relatively loose, approach to gigging in places like Whelans, Mother Redcaps and so on.

Take last night, for instance, Walking home after the MTV awards show, I dropped into The Harcourt Hotel and found 3 young musicians, one of whom is the son of broadcaster Aidan O'Hara, himself no mean singer of a song, ensconced in a corner and knocking out our native music with a good degree of brio. The Harcourt, of course is by now justly famed for its Monday night Music From The Counties' series - though with a band from Romania due to appear there over the next few weeks, I feel even they might be stretching our geographical credibility a tad. The Boys from the County Bucharest, or wha'?!

In O'Donoghues, on Merrion Row, a session can, and usually does, take place at the drop of a plec, though its ambience, it must be said, has changed somewhat with the passage of years. On the North side of the Liffey, if you walked into Michael Hughes' emporium of liquid sustenance, it is quite likely that you would find members of Altan, Four Men And A Dog, De Dannan in session anytime from 7pm onwards, not to mention the regular Tuesday night gig with Frankie Lane and Paul Kelly.

What draws people to venues like those mentioned is their informality; you're as likely to find a bouzouki player from Essen there as you are a civil servant from Ennis, both drawn by common cause - in this case, a sheer love of the music.

On the pay-at-the-door front, a favourite haunt of my own is Whelan's of Wexford Street, which in the recent past has played host to the likes of Alias Roy Kavana, Dervish, Draiocht, and C.J. Chenier. Stated for return visits, even as I write, are Terry Clarke and Henry McCullough, Steve Young (caught him at Bad Bob's some years back - wunnerfull) Ian Matthews - I missed him last time round - and loads more.

Nor should it be forgotten that if you gotta go out on Saturday night, there's really only one option. Whither do I speak of? Mother Redcap's of course. Rock on (gently), Eilish!

• Oliver P. Sweeney