A cracking line-up for the weekend

AN EXCITING and entertaining line-up of musicians are set to make this year’s Ennis Trad Festival a hit with the thousands of music fans set to come to Ennis to join in the popular traditional music festival next week.

The festival will be launched in The Old Ground Hotel, at 6.30pm on Thursday, November 11 with Pat Costello of Clare FM. Then for five days, until the early hours of November 16, the county town will be gripped by trad fever.
The 17th Ennis Trad Festival will include concerts, CD launches, a céilí, workshops in a variety of instruments, trad discos and the Árd Ghaisce na mBuíonta – The Great Céilí Band Challenge with 14 bands signed up to compete in this year’s competition.
While all that is going on, over a 100 round-the-clock, high-octane, informal sessions take place in over 30 pubs, making the town pulsate to the toe-tapping rhythms of Irish traditional music.
A late club/concert will take place on each of the five nights of the festival kicking off with Any Old Time, comprising Mick Daly, Matt Crannitch and Dave Hennessy on the Thursday night in The Queen’s Hotel. This classic band rarely comes together these days but the organisers have coaxed them to perform at the Ennis Trad Festival.
On Friday, November 12, there are two special concerts in store for music lovers, including the special West Wind Presenters’ Concert in association with Clare FM in Glór. Later on that night, Máirtín O’Connor, Cathal Hayden, Séamie O’Dowd and Jimmy Higgins, will take to The Auburn Lodge’s stage. According to John Rynne, “They are one of the most powerful and seriously good trad acts in the country at the moment”.
The musical might of The Dave Munnelly Band will be centre stage in The Auburn Lodge Hotel on Saturday night. The concert will coincide with the uniqueness of the trad disco when top DJ, Ollie Mullooly will be back with his own original mix of powerful trad rhythms. Ticket-holders will be allowed access to both events in the hotel on the night.
The Brock McGuire Band, with special guest, 11 times All-Ireland champion harmonica player, Noel Battle, will be the headline performance on Sunday night at the Old Ground Hotel.
The farewell concert on Monday night will see the exceptional Charlie Harris, Maeve Donnelly and Eamonn and Geraldine Cotter in The Queen’s Hotel combine forces for the a final celebration.
In addition, those wanting to express themselves through their own freestyle steps, can go shuckin’ and jivin’ with Andrew MacNamara immediately after the final concert. This promises to be a very different kind of trad disco with tunes from Maggie Barry, Patsy Cline, Tulla Céilí Band and many other surprise tracks, presented by the ever colourful box player.
Album launches have always been an important part of the trad festival and there are four on the programme this year. Ciorras, the product of Donal Lunny’s search for hot new trad band on TG4’s Lorg Lunny, will launch their CD on the Thursday night at the Temple Gate Hotel, at 7.30pm. On Friday evening, Dave Sheridan, the Sligo flute player, will launch his CD at the Queen’s Hotel. There’ll be two more CD launches on Sunday with Eoin O’Neill, Kevin Griffin and Quentin Cooper officially celebrating the release of their Live at Kilfenora CD, at 1pm in Temple Gate Hotel, which was recorded during the Riches of Clare series of lunchtime concerts last summer. Later on, banjo man, Stevie Dunne will launch his CD at 7pm also in the Temple Gate Hotel.
Set dancers, sean-nós dancers and even freestyle dancers will be kept busy also during the weekend. On Sunday, a céilí with the renowned Abbey Céilí Band is a must for those who wish to batter out their sets. Prior to this, Geraldine Greene will coach dancers in the art of set-dancing at the same venue, Cois na hAbhna. Suzanne Leahy will put sean-nós dancers through their steps at the masterclass on Saturday morning upstairs in Tom Steele’s.
Glór Irish Music Centre is the venue for the céilí band competition, which is set to attract céilí bands from up and down the country in its fourth year of competition. As the only successful céilí band competition outside the protective boundaries of Comhaltas, Saturday’s battle amongst many of the country’s finest musicians will, uniquely, afford audience members the opportunity to vote their preference as the fifth adjudicator, while four eminently experienced adjudicators add their decision.
As in previous years, masterclasses will be held in a variety of instruments with care and maintenance of flute and a demonstration of Willy Simmons whistles by Jon Dodd. The annual charity trad table quiz will also be back this year following the festival brunch on Saturday. Teams of four are welcome to attend this fun event in aid of Cahercalla Hospice.
For more information on what promises to be a top-class festival, see www.ennistradfestival.com or facebook where over 1,400 people already ‘like’ Ennis Trad Festival.