Lusty Beg Island on Lough Erne in Co Fermanagh was the setting this week for a rare meeting of the music of Ireland and Senegal, involving some of the best musicians from both countries.
After taking part in the week-long "Common Ground" workshop the eight musicians will play two concerts tonight and tomorrow night in different locations in Fermanagh.
Accordionist Martin O'Connor, one of the Irish group, described the Senegalese as "astounding musicians" who had gone beyond the horizons of their own traditional music.
He said there was "common ground in the spirit" if not in the actual music from both countries. "It is very easy to relate to what they are doing and they also find it easy to relate to what we are doing," he said.
Martin O'Connor is joined by Cathal Hayden, formerly of Four Men and a Dog, Desi Wilkinson and Trevor Stewart.
The Senegalese musicians are Oumar Sow, one of the country's top guitarists, Thio Mbaye, a musician who worked with the Senegalese National Ballet, Soriba Kouyate, a master on the traditional kora, and Pathe Jaddi, a bass player who has performed at home and abroad. As individuals they have recorded and toured extensively.
The organiser of the Lusty Beg workshop is Fermanagh-based Jenny Cathcart, a former producer with BBC television and specialist in world music, who also manages a leading Senegalese band.
She said she hoped the workshop would prove that talented musicians from traditions as far away as Ireland and Senegal had a lot in common. "Research into the roots of Celtic music lead us to believe that it finds echoes in the music of north Africa, and the Senegalese are a Nilotic people who travelled across north Africa before settling on the western-most point of the continent," she said.
The aim of the workshop was to give the musicians "the time and space to make music on their own terms". The eight musicians will play two concerts together, tonight at The Knocks Community Centre in Lisnaskea at 8.30 p.m. and tomorrow at the Copper Kettle Club in the Ashberry Hotel in Enniskillen at 9 p.m. Tickets cost £3 and £4. The initiative was funded by The Arts Council for Northern Ireland, Diversity 21 and Fermanagh District Council.