Updated weekly
Dates, venues, locations and weblinks for Irish traditional music, singing festivals, summer schools and workshops for 2012

For a list of Comhaltas fleadhanna, click Here
Please note: Where the 2012 dates are not yet available, the 2011 dates are indicated.
January

Shannonside Winter Music Weekend
Sixmilebridge, Co Clare
January12 – 15
http://www.wmw.ie
Temple Bar Trad Festival
Dublin
January 25 – 29
www.templebartrad.com
Ballincollig Winter Music Festival
Ballincollig, Co Cork
January 25 – 29
http://www.whitehorse.ie/
Merriman Winter School
Hotel Westport, [...]

A new series of the popular TG4 traditional music programme Geantraí, will be broadcast on TG4 starting on Sunday, January 29, 2012, for a 13 week run. The programme will be repeated on Fridays at 8pm on TG4.
The series which has built up a loyal audience among traditional music followers in Ireland and abroad will [...]

Oidhreacht an Chláir has launched a new masterclass series in Irish traditional music in Miltown Malbay this February.
The series will start off with musician Noel Hill’s concertina masterclass on the weekend of February 3, 4 and 5 at Áras OaC, Flag Road, Miltown Malbay.
This is an intensive course aimed at the advanced and advanced intermediate [...]

An American cable channel is making a reality TV series about children who dedicate their lives to Irish dancing competitions.
The eight-part series, to be called Irish Dancing Tweens, will follow children from dance schools and classes across America as they rehearse and perform in feiseanna.
TLC, formerly known as The Learning Channel, will broadcast the series [...]

The pinning  of extravagant wigs onto young Irish dancers may cause a type of permanent alopecia (hair loss), doctors have warned.
Traction alopecia occurs when there is chronic traction or pulling on the hair follicle. It is often associated with certain hairstyles, such as tight braiding. However, traction alopecia over a period of [...]

Mick Moloney talked to Peter Browne about his days in the 1960s folk group The Johnstons on Radio Eireann’s The Rolling Wave programme on June 19, 2011. He started by talking about what it was like to be part of a group like The Johnstons.
“In the Sixties it was almost impossible for any of us [...]

The village of Slane in Co.Meath will pay tribute to one of it’s most famous musical families when the first annual Johnstons Music Festival takes place on the last weekend in June.
The highlight of the weekend will be the festival concert on Saturday, June 25, at the T.L.T. Concert Hall in Drogheda, when for the [...]

Former Stocktons Wing member Steve Cooney’s marriage to singer Sinead O’Connor has ended. “Steve is lovely, so it’s not his fault, but mine,” the singer told the Irish Independent (14/4/2011). “it was not an extremely happy marriage. I am heartbroken about the marriage breaking up,” she said.
The split occured three weeks ago, just eight months [...]

The Obama Administration has refused to allow Irish American traditional musicians (and Irish musicians resident in the US) to participate in the Second Annual Celtic Festival in Cuba from April 15-26.
The festival is being organized by Irishman Kilian Kennedy who discovered during a vacation in Cuba a lively Celtic tradition sustained by immigrants and descendants [...]

Irish Minstrels and Musicians, by Capt Francis O’Neill (1913). A key work in the bibliography of Irish music.
Irish Folk Music – A Fascinating Hobby, by Capt Francis O’Neill (1910). Includes ‘Hints to Amateur Pipers’, by Patsey Touhey.
Pipemaker Bill Haneman from Skerries is to be congratulated for putting online these two very important books in the [...]

The opening concert of this year’s Frankie Kennedy Winter School in Co Donegal on December 28 was streamed live. The concert features Seamus Begley, Tim Edey, Mick O’Brien and Caoimhin O Raghallaigh.
The concert was streamed by LiveTrad.com which brought us the Dervish Sligo birthday concert last summer. The video can be viewed at
http://ww w.livetrad.com [...]

Singer Paul Brady has been awarded the 2010 Tenco Prize for Songwriting. The prize has been awarded to a songwriter every year since 1974, with previous winners including such talent as Joni Mitchell, Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen.
The award was inspired by the Italian songwriter Luigi Tenco, who died in [...]

Dublin’s planned statue of Luke Kelly has become a victim of Ireland’s economic woes. The Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) had agreed to install a statue to honour the Dubliners legend at a cost of €85,000, but it has since retracted its promise because of its own financial difficulties. “Recently when the DDDA were brought [...]

Following up on the success of An Jig Gig, TG4 is preparing another talent competition.This time the Irish language TV channel’s show will search for Ireland’s most entertaining family.
From The Clancy Brothers and the Fury Brothers to Clannad, or the sean-nós dancing of the Cunninghams, the Irish family has entertained us down the decades with [...]

The Dubliners are getting their biggest crowds in years on a sell-out European tour – ironically because the band have seen their audiences swelled by the new wave of Irish emigrants.
“It’s been a shock to see so many of our best young people now trying to make a fist of it away from home,” says [...]

Ceoltóirí Chluain Tarbh, which survived the Clontarf Classac controversy in Dublin in 2008, goes from strength to strength. They were guests of Dublin Lord Mayor Gerry Breen at the Mansion House on October 29, 2010, where he unveiled the organisation’s new logo, and presented graduation certificates to CCT musicians.
The Lord Mayor expressed his gratitude and [...]

Michael Flatley at 52 returns this week to the stage in Belfast as Lord of the Dance.
As he opens the show’s latest tour, with himself as the lead, Flatley says he’s not in the least bit worried that age has slowed him down, and that fans will be as thrilled as they always have with [...]

Anne Byrne had the classic ’show biz’ start to her singing career, appearing on stage at the age of three with her mother and father in amateur pantomime and musical shows. Her mother’s family, the Bradys, hail from Dun Laoghaire in Co. Dublin and were all extremely musical.
Her uncle, the famous Willie Brady,  who in [...]

Maire Ni Scolai was born in Dublin and learned her Irish in the Ring Gaeltacht of Co Waterford. After she moved to Galway  in the 1920s she organised classes in Irish singing and dancing with her sister Mona.
A very early broadcaster on Radio Eireann – or 2RN as it was then called – Maire Ni [...]