Friday 25
BOUTIQUE TRAD Masters of Tradition – Various venues, Bantry, Co Cork Until Sunday westcorkmusic.ie – In keeping with this boutique gathering's penchant for carefully curated collaborations, tonight sees the inimitable Australian guitarist, composer and innovator Steve Cooney share an evening of music with long time friends and playmates, piper Mick O'Brien and fiddler Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh. Add to that heady mix, Cúl Aodha singer Iarla Ó Lionáird and pianist Micheál Ó Suilleabháin, and this lineup is heading for stratospheric heights. Tonight's late night gathering features Slow Moving Clouds. Later in the weekend, check out singer and storyteller Len Graham, and Jack Lynch, along with Cathal Hayden, Stephen Hayden and Seamie O'Dowd, and much more besides.
Saturday 26
WICKLOW ROOTS Harbour Roots Festival – Various venues, Bray facebook.com/theharbourbarbray – Wicklow's roots are showing this weekend, with an eclectic mix of visitors from Gavin Glass to Pete Cummins, veteran of The Fleadh Cowboys and one time Nanci Griffith collaborator. Also slated are The Dublin Bluegrass Collective and The Whole Hog Band. This is Americana, bluegrass and roots with a distinctively east coast Irish tint. More high winsome than high lonesome.
Saturday 26
BEAUTIFUL AFFAIR Stockton's Wing – Ballykeeffe Amphitheatre, Kilkenny 7pm €20 ballykeeffeamphitheatre.com – Four decades on and Stockton's Wing are reprising their back catalogue on this extensive celebratory tour. With Mick Hanrahan and Paul Roche, Tommy Hayes and Steve Cooney gathering to cast a look back to the halcyon days when they filled dance halls from Gortahork to Gneeveguilla (well okay, Castleisland so), they've got a lot to draw from. not just Beautiful Affair and Walk Away. With a name borrowed from a line in Bruce Springsteen's Backstreets, Stockton's Wing were always a band who could straddle boundaries: not a bad calling card in these troubled times.
