Tag Archives: Tara Breen

The Irish are a travelling people, and wherever we go, we take pieces of our culture and our way of life with us. This is something that exists deep within our blood, in our cultural DNA, and something that we share with all of our Celtic ancestors. Clare musicians Tara Breen and Pádraig Rynne have teamed up with virtuoso Cork guitarist, Jim Murry to explore this very Celtic connection in their debut album Odyssey. The album, which was released last week, features tunes collected by the trio throughout their long and well-travelled musical careers. It features tunes from diverse locations, thousands of miles apart, places that, on the surface, are very different from each other. What unites them is the Celtic and then the Irish willingness to travel, and to bring the tradition with them everywhere they go. “We picked up a lot of the music [we play] on our travels,” said Pádraig. “On the album we have a track …

TWO contemporary Clare musicians are set to collaborate with their musical heroes from times past as part of an innovative new project which will premiere on Culture Night this September. The Irish Traditional Music Archive (ITMA) and the Arts Office of Clare County Council have announced that the second Duala: Creator-in-Residence Scheme has been awarded to joint applicants Tara Breen and Nuala Kennedy. The pair have been working on Ag Lorg Ár Líne – Clare Women: Listening and Performing will premiere online on Friday, September 17, as part of Culture Night 2021. They have been listening deeply to archival recordings of their female predecessors, and are attempting to ‘collaborate remotely’ across time and space with some of their County Clare musical foremothers: Kitty Hayes, song/concertina; Nell Galvin, fiddle; Mary Haren, concertina; and singer Nora Cleary.  Through creative use of digital archival recordings, Nuala and Tara will explore and reimagine the details and subtleties of the music of these influential women …