I was talking to my mother last week and she was commenting on how moved she had been by the funeral mass for former President, Dr. Patrick Hillery.

What she had found particularly poignant was the unaccompanied version of the air ‘Inis Oirr’ played during the funeral mass. It brought it home again to me that, although there are some fantastic groups out there, Irish music is essentially a small music – by which I mean that intimacy best expresses the soul of Irish music. Go listen to ‘O Raghallaigh’s Grave’ by Dervish and tell me you’re not deeply touched by Liam Kelly’s solo flute in a way that the rest of the album, masterful though it might be, can’t match.
Philip King knows the value of this intimacy. With Other Voices he has almost built a genre round it and the return of The Full Set to RTÉ for a second series on Friday May 16 sees him approach the quiet space in music, where conversations can flourish, from a different perspective. This year the series is presented by singer and fiddler player Mairead Ní Mhaonaigh and features some of the finest duet combinations playing Irish music today. Like Other Voices, it was filmed in the evocative St James Church, Dingle.
The series includes duets and solo performances from De Dannan engine room Frankie Gavin (fiddle) and Máirtín O’Connor (accordion), the award winning Ciarán Ó Maoniagh (fiddle) and Aidan O’Donnell (fiddle), husband and wife Michael Rooney (harp) and June Nic Chormaic (flute). Clare master Martin Hayes (Fiddle) and Dennis Cahill (guitar) also join. West Kerry’s own Seamus Begley (accordion) and his son Eoin Begley (concertina) and the playful and innovative Caoimhin Ó Raghallaigh (fiddle) and Ronan Browne (uilleann pipes) complete the line up.
Jess Klein [pictured], who co-headlined a number of shows on the Guggenheim Grotto’s first US tour, lands here to play some shows over the next few days – straight off the back of a US tour with UFO label mate Damien Dempsey. Her live performances, stripped down and vulnerable, exude an emotional intimacy that has captivated US audiences for years. She has been reaping critical acclaim for last year’s City Garden – her most emotionally revealing album to date. She plays The Crane in Galway on Thursday May 8, Mullarkey’s in Clifden on Friday May 9, the Inishbofin Festival on Saturday May 10, Cork’s Half Moon Theatre on Sunday May 11 and wraps up the whistlestop tour with a night in Dublin’s Whelans on Thursday May 15.
Art Garfunkel plays a single Vicar Street gig here on Friday October 3. Although he reunited with partner, Paul Simon in 2003 for the highly successful “Old Friends” tour it seems likely that, this time out, his classic material will be balanced with songs from his 2007 solo album Some Enchanted Evening, a musical celebration of the 20th century’s greatest songwriters.
Younger by far but fast approaching legendary status, ex-Nickel Creek mainman Chris Thile has put together The Punch Brothers, a crack bluegrass outfit featuring himself, Chris Eldridge on guitar, Greg Garrison on bass, Noam Pikelny on banjo and Gabe Witcher on fiddle. The ensemble kicked out their debut album Punch on Nonesuch Records in February to huge media acclaim in the US and they’ll be playing at Dublin’s Sugar Club on Friday July 11, 2008.
Focussing on veteran players, the Bealtaine festival offers the chance to see some masters of Irish traditional music with three gigs in Donegal. The first show is on Thursday May 15 in Teach Huidai Beag in Bunbeg, with a performance in the Regional Cultural Centre in Letterkenny the following evening and a final show in Kilcar Parish Hall on Saturday May 17. The show is based around Kitty Sean Cunningham, a musician whose vibrancy and attitude at 88 proves that you don’t stop until you want to stop. Other musicians in the sessions include Eddie Gara (81), melodeon and piano accordion player; Con McGinley (92), a fiddler of note with a reservoir of old tunes from his locality and Bridget Gara (84), melodeon and accordion player from Leemagowra in Ardara. All four have individual repertoires from their localities in Glencolmcille.
The first annual Yee Haw Barndance, happening in the Sugar Club, Dublin on Saturday May 17 stars some of Ireland’s finest artistes including the boisterous country and western outfit The Prairie Dawgs, the bluegrass tinged folk of the wonderfully named Sick and Indigent Song Club, the powerhouse Americana vocals of Lisa O’Neill and the swinging skiffle of The Louisiana 5. Fun!

A BIG OF WHAT YOU NANCI
Griffith tours Ireland in August
Nanci Griffith makes a welcome return to Ireland this August with three shows, the first on Wednesday August 6 in LIT, Limerick then a pair of Galway shows on Thursday 7 and Friday August 8 in the Town Hall Theatre.
The woman who gave us the expression ‘Other Voices, Other Rooms’ has been recognised since the outset of her career almost three decades ago as a writer of startling depth and subtlety as well as a formidable interpreter of other people’s songs. Bob Dylan, for example, specifically requested that she sing ‘Boots of Spanish Leather’ at his historic Madison Square Garden anniversary concert.