Carrick-on-Suir to host an array of folk music concerts for the Clancy Brothers Festival

Carrick-on-Suir will once again become the country’s folk music capital this June Bank Holiday Weekend with visitors from as far as the US and Scotland coming to the town to enjoy the Clancy Brothers Music & Arts Festival.

An exciting array of concerts, community and arts events is lined up for this year’s festival which celebrates the music legacy of the town’s famous Clancy Brothers folk singing group.

Clancy Festival PRO Walter Dunphy reports that hotel and B&B rooms are booked out in the town for the weekend due to visitors coming to the town for the festival. The organisers are praying the good weather continues for the weekend so the public will be able to enjoy the many outdoor events planned for the festival.

The festival will be officially opened by Tom Nealon of Brewery Lane Drama Group at Brewery Lane Theatre this Wednesday, May 31 at the festival’s opening variety concert  that will include performances from local singers, musicians and World Irish Dancing champion Aoibhe Twomey from Carrick-on-Suir. 

Some tickets are still available for this concert as well as folk singer Emer Dunne’s concert at the same venue on Thursday night.

It won’t be the only opportunity to enjoy folk music in the town on Thursday night. Over at the Strand Theatre, Carrick-on-Suir Musical Society will be staging its annual Carrick Musical Society Goes Folk concert at 8pm . And the annual Eoghan Power Ballad Singing Contest will take place in the Old Mill Pub at New Street at 9.30pm.

Tickets are sold out for the Clancy Family Concert featuring musicians and singers from the Clancy Brothers’s extended family at Brewery Lane Theatre on Friday night.

The Festival’s headline show will be the concert starring Rory Makem and Dónal Clancy, sons of the late Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy of the Clancy Brothers, at the Strand Theatre on Saturday night at 8pm.

They will perform on stage with Donnchadh Gough on bodhran and Brendan Clancy on fiddle and mandolin.

There has been a big demand for tickets to Brewery Lane Drama Group’s lunchtime drama – The Tinker’s Wedding by JM Synge. It will be staged at the theatre at 1pm on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Meanwhile, a film of the Clancy Brothers in concert at the Regal Theatre in Clonmel in 1995 will be screened at the town’s Sean Healy Memorial Library on Friday at 3pm. To book you place for this free event contact the Library at (051) 640591 or email: carricklibrary@tipperarycoco.ie.

Young trad musicians will have their chance to shine at the festival’s Youth Busking Contest that takes place at the Presentation National School’s outdoor amphitheatre on Saturday from 2pm. It costs €10 for young musicians to enter.

Finally, the Wood of O duo’s concert scheduled for Carrick-on-Suir’s Nano Nagle Community Resource Centre on Sunday night has been cancelled.

To book tickets for Clancy Festival events at Brewery Lane Theatre log onto: www.ticketsource.eu/
brewery-lane-theatre or contact Brewery Lane Theatre at (086) 1274736

Tickets for concerts at the Strand Theatre can be booked at the Clancy Festival Office at the Tudor Artisan Hub, 49 Main Street or by phoning (051) 640921.