• Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh & Cormac Begley @ An Droichead, Belfast

    May 19, 2017 - By 

    There was double reason for celebration at An Droichead – South Belfast’s primary centre of Irish language and culture. Firstly, there had been the launch earlier that day of the Belfast Traditional Music Trail. This initiative, to be held every Saturday afternoon, presents traditional Irish music to all-comers, on a trail that traverses the Cathedral Quarter – taking in some of the city’s most iconic pubs. Then, just a few hours later, a full house at An Droichead welcomed fiddler Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh   and concertina player Cormac Begley – two of the finest exponents of their respective instruments in Ireland…

  • Beat Root: Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh & Metá Metá

    September 14, 2016 - By 

    Back for its second year, Beat Root, Moving On Music’s festival of roots music, offered a program as diverse as imaginable, from harps, fiddles and thundering rock to singer-songwriter mastery and psychedelic folk.  Traditions, and the bending of them, were the constant dualities at play across four evenings of uplifting music, that taken together, amounted to one of Belfast’s best music festivals of the year to date. Though often associated with formal recitals, the harp can be one of the most expressive and one of the most thrilling of instruments – just think of Colombian Edmar Castaneda or Shetland islander Catriona…