Concerts will be streamed each Wednesday evening by the US platform OurConcerts.live. These concerts will have been pre-recorded in Bantry House, Future Forests in Kealkil and Abbestrewry Church in Skibbereen.

We will soon be announcing details of when booking opens. Keep an eye out for the next e-shot and of course, all announcements can be found on our social media channels.

As ever, the Festival is headlined by its Artistic Director Martin Hayes, the fiddler from East Clare, whose distinctive touch and extravagant virtuosity has brought the tradition to new levels. Martin discusses this year’s Masters of Tradition in the video clip below.

Over the eight days of the festival there will also be performances and collaborations from guitarists Steve Cooney, John Walsh and Phil Robson; singer Christine Tobin; multi instrumentalists Francesco Turrisi and Brian Donnellan; pianist and composer Cormac McCarthy; poet Doireann Ní Ghríofa; accordionist Derek Hickey; uilleann piper David Power; and violinist Marja Gaynor. The Goodman Trio (uilleann piper Mick O’Brien, flautist Emer Mayock and fiddler Aoife Ní Bhriain) present the music collected by Canon James Goodman in the mid-nineteenth century and perform in Canon Goodman’s own church – Abbeystrewry Church in Skibbereen.

Immram, a setting of the suite of poems of the same name written by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, will feature Neil Ó Lochlainn (double bass, flute), sean-nós singer Saileog Ní Cheannabháin, fiddler Lucia Mac Partlin and harpist Eilís Lavelle.  The festival programme also includes a very special conversation between Martin Hayes and Bruce Molsky, the American fiddler, banjo player, guitarist and singer who performs music of the Appalachian region.