Andy Irvine has just come back from what he describes as “a truly Shackletonian safari trip with my son to the tip of Cape York in far north Queensland. If you want to know anything about driving a 4WD truck through creeks and rivers and mudslides, just ask us! I feel I am now an expert.” He’s currently on tour in Germany, but is due back in early November to play a series of gigs in Ireland, beginning on Nov 5 at the Roisin Dubh in Galway and continuing to the Lobby in Cork (6), the Granary, Killarney (7), the Cobblestone, Dublin (8) and the Belfast Festival at Queens (9). Then he’s off to the UK with Patrick Street, whose new CD Street Life is due out imminently. Also due out in the next couple of months is a live album by MOZAIK, a new band consisting of Andy, Donal Lunny, the great old-timey fiddle and 5-string banjo player Bruce Molsky, Rens van der Zalm on fiddle, mandolin and guitar, and Nikola Parov – an old mate of Andy’s from Budapest who plays “anything Bulgarian and everything else as well.” Consisting of a mixture of old-time tunes, Balkan music and Andy’s original songs, the album was recorded in Brisbane, Australia, last March, and with any luck the group will be reuniting for a gig or two after the album comes out.

The Tallaght Traditional Music Weekend takes place at the Civic Theatre on Saturday and Sunday, October 26-27, with Finbarr Boyle of Claddagh Records fame as the MC. Among those performing are Barney McKenna and Tony MacMahon, Joe and Anne Burke, Rosie Steward, Mickey Dunne, Fintan Vallely, Sean Buggy, and Colm and Finbarr Naughton. On the Sunday, there’s a special Fiddle Concert featuring Tommy Peoples, Frankie Gavin, Brian Rooney, Maura O’Keeffe, Tadgh O’Sullivan and Liam O’Connor. Tommy Peoples is also giving all-day fiddle master classes on Saturday and Sunday at the Tymonbawn Community Centre; to book, contact Caroline at 01 462 1029, 01 452 0611 or 087 751 7403.

Jim Page is set to receive a Lifetime Service Award from Earthwatch at his gig in Whelan’s on Monday, October 28. Back in the early 1970s, Page helped to legalise busking in Seattle, Washington. He then moved over to Ireland for a while, gaining a name as a songwriter; he’s probably best known here for having penned ‘Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Russian Roulette’ and ‘Landlord’ for Christy Moore and Moving Hearts. Jim returned to the USA in the mid-1980s and has lived in Seattle ever since. Tickets for the Whelan’s show are €13 on the door.

Sliabh Notes are on tour in Ireland at the moment, playing the Fermoy Community Theatre on October 24, the Cobblestone in Dublin on Oct 25, the Pádraig O’Keeffe Festival in Castleisland on Oct 26, and in Inish Turk, Co. Mayo, on Oct 27. On their recently-released CD Along Blackwater’s Banks, the three core members of the group – box player Donal Murphy, fiddler Matt Cranitch and singer/guitarist Tommy O’Sullivan – are joined by an impressive array of guests, including Liam Ó Maonlai, Matt Molloy, Kevin Burke, Steve Cooney, Brian McGrath, and De Danann’s Colm Murphy.

Also on tour are Hank Wedel and Ray Barron, whose dates include The Crown, Wexford (November 1), The Lodge, Mallow (2), The Tin Pub, Ahakista, Co. Cork (3, with special guest Rob ‘The Bones’), Charlie’s Bar, Cork City (4, 11, 18), The Granary, Killarney (6, 16), Danny’s Bar, Kilmacthomas (7), The King’s Bar, Waterford City (7), Pine Lodge, Myrtleville, Co. Cork (9), Brandon’s, Ennis (10), The Boathouse, Cappoquin (13), Baby Hanna’s, Skibbereen (14), and Carroll’s Pub, Thomastown (15). After that, they’re off to Belgium and Holland for a couple of weeks. Tracks from the duo’s album Where The Bottles Break were featured on the soundtrack of The Gangs of Waterfall, which won first prize in the Irish shorts category at the 2001 Cork Film Festival. Hank also plays with the band Open Kitchen, who released an album this year entitled Taking It In, while Ray plays with Two-Time Polka, currently working on a new recording of their own.

Seosamhín Ní Bheaglaoich, RTRs Mary Kennedy, and Julian Erskine of Abhann Productions were among those who gathered at the Temple Bar Music Centre for the debut performance of ‘Sunda’, an ambitious new composition by Fionnuala Gill and Deirdre Ní Chinnéide, otherwise known as the band Eala. “We just thought, wouldn’t it be lovely to do a gig wearing nice dresses and high hair,” Ní Chinnéide told the crowd – and so they did....

Good news for Máirtín O’Connor fans: the mischievously talented box player’s classic 1990 album Perpetual Motion (MOC 001) has now been re-released on the Tara label, and should be a bit easier to come by from here on out.