Tag Archives: Damian O’Rourke

THE second Wings Music Festival will be held in Shannon over the course of a week from February 20-26. It follows the initial festival which was held last June, and organiser Damian O’Rourke said that holding it before the summer could see an even greater level of local interest and engagement. “There’s a lot going on in the summer. The winter is a good time for it, with the dark evenings you might have more people who would like to go to a gig and get involved in something,” he told The Champion. “When it’s the summer people might want to head off, whereas in the winter it’s more suited to indoor gigs. “I was a big fan of the Winter Music Festival in Sixmilebridge. That was at the end of January, I loved that vibe and I’m trying to pull a few bits from what they created and bring it to Shannon. “I hope they come back. I didn’t …

THE Wings music festival was a big hit in Shannon this summer, and plans are in train to have another one in 2023 – but this time it will be a winter event. Damian O’Rourke was behind this summer’s event, which went down very well and he explained the thinking behind the reboot. “After Wings, a few of us met to see what had worked well, what could we do better for next year. After that I started thinking about it being on in the summer, and with there being so much else on in the summer, it might be better as a winter festival. “We decided to go with the last Monday to Sunday in February, the 21st to the 26th. There is a lot on in the summer and in Shannon the gigs are mainly indoors, so if there’s a spell of sunny weather it can be harder to get people to come. In February it’ll be dark …

HAVING run the Wings festival in Shannon this summer, Damian O’Rourke has endeavoured to keep live music happening regularly in Shannon, and is now behind a couple of ongoing events around the town. One of these is a monthly Wings session  in the Shannon Springs hotel. “It’s the last Sunday of every month, it has come out of the Wings festival in June,” Damian explained. “We had the wind down session for that, it was an immense day, and we just wanted to keep it going. We had something the following month and I was thinking of having it every second Sunday, but a friend of mine recommended doing the last Sunday of the month because it’s easy for people to remember. “We’ve been doing it since June and it’s going well, it starts at 1pm on the Sunday and it keeps going until whenever.” It is open to everyone, whether they want to play or just listen. “It’s a …

DAMIAN O’Rourke has organised a number of live performances at the Swive Stage in Shannon Town Centre. “We had the first one on September 7, the next one will be on the 21st and it’s every second Wednesday until October 19,” said Damian.  He said it is following on from the Wings festival, which was held in the summer. “We had a good reaction to that and this ties in with Phase 4 of the Live Local Performance Scheme  from the County Council. Instead of doing one big event I thought it’d be nice to have a continual thing, where people can come mid-week and look forward to the next one.” There will be a diversity of performers, he added. “The first night we had two acts, the next three events we will have three performers per night. There will be a nice mix of poetry, music, storytelling, tunes, songs and stuff. There will be an array of performers that …

THE inaugural Wings Music Festival came to its end last Sunday night, with a raucous session at the Shannon Springs. The festival began six days earlier and saw music and performance at a number of venues around the town, including Saturday night’s show at the Leisure Centre, which featured Luka Bloom, Cyril O’Donoghue and Mickey Dunne. Wings was the brainchild of Damian O’Rourke, who put in a great effort to organise venues, musicians and to get the town engaged with the festival. Speaking this week, he said that the first and last sessions, both open to all musicians and held at the Shannon Springs Hotel, were the highlights for him. “The opening session on the Monday, and then closing on the Sunday, they were pretty special, people just came in and played songs. “On Sunday we started at 1pm in the Shannon Springs and it was going for 11 and a half hours. “I’d say it was the longest recorded …

LIVE entertainment is back and the Shannon Summer Music Festival took place in the Town Park on Saturday, offering entertainment to young and old throughout the day. Organiser Chris Walshe was happy with the event, despite some less than ideal weather. “It was great, despite the weather we still had a good turnout. We had a very good turnout early in the day for the children’s entertainment, we had face painting, balloon modellers and the kiddie’s discos. We got a bad bout of rain for an hour or two, but people drifted back then for the live music. “For a finish we probably had 150 and 200 out in the Park. Everyone was there enjoyed it, the musicians were delighted and it was nice to have the opportunity to have a big production like that in Shannon and to show off the Park as a venue.” It featured a number of local musicians and he said the day was the …

SHANNON is set to see two festivals this June, one being organised by Damian O’Rourke of Cuppa Tea TV and the other by Chris Walshe of Hippo Sound and Lighting. The Shannon Summer Music Festival, which Chris is working on, will be a one-day event on June 11, while Damian’s one will be over the last week in June, and will be known as the Wings Festival. Both are being supported by Clare County Council and by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. Speaking this week about the Shannon Music Festival, Chris said, “It’s taking place on June 11 in the Town Park. It’ll be taking place around the bandstand, early on there’ll be a family fun day with music, children’s entertainment, cultural performances. “In the evening then, from around 6pm onwards, there’ll be a main stage there where bands and local performers will take over, it’ll be live music for the rest of the evening.” …

A concert to raise funds for the people of Ukraine will be held in Shannon on Wednesday night (March 9), writes Owen Ryan. Cuppa Tea TV (which is run by Damian O’Rourke), the Love Shannon Community Council and Shannon Leisure Centre all came together to organise the event. “We have Luka Bloom, David Hope, the Shannon Gospel Choir. There’ll be a good few from Youth in Music singing at it, and a lot of other locals, there’ll probably be 15 or 16 playing on the night,” said Damian. The proceeds are all for the Irish Red Cross and explaining how it would work, Damian said, “It’s donations on the door, anyone can come along and throw in whatever they want into the bucket. We’re working on a GoFundMe link, so anyone who can’t make it on the night can make donations through that.” Karl Fogarty, manager of Shannon Leisure Centre, was the person who got the ball rolling on the …