Craobh Rua, Niamh Parsons & Graham Dunne
Fri 03 Oct 2025
9pm
€15
An Spailpín Fánach: 9pm Craobh Rua, Niamh Parsons & Graham Dunne €15
CRAOBH RUA perform Irish Traditional music with their distinctive Northern style, creating a dynamic and textured sound that blends driving dance tunes, lyrical airs, with both traditional and original songs steeped in the tradition . With a deep respect for tradition and a flair for authentic arrangements, their music has delighted audiences and earned them wide acclaim having toured and performed in Ireland, throughout Europe, USA, Canada and Australia.
The Band features
Desy McCabe (Uilleann Pipes and Tin Whistles)
Brian Connolly (Banjo and Mandolin)
Eoghan McKenna (Fiddle)
James Carson (Banjo and Mandolin)
Jordan Lively (Guitar and Vocals)
Niamh Parsons
Niamh Parsons has come to be known as one of the most distinctive voices in Irish music. Her voice has drawn comparisons to such venerated singers as Dolores
Keane, June Tabor and Sandy Denny. The great Scottish balladeer Archie Fisher said of Niamh, ‘a songstress like her comes along once or twice in a generation.’
Since the mid 1990s, Niamh has also been the vocal, song and performance teacher with Ceoltóir, the Irish Traditional Music Performance Higher Diploma, in Ballyfermot College of Further Education (BCFE). Niamh also has many international students who are taught traditional songs and singing online.
Growing up in Dublin, Niamh’s music-loving parents brought herself and her sister to the local folk club in The Old Shieling Hotel in Raheny, where the young girls were exposed to songs and singing from the likes of The Johnstons, Emmet Spiceland, Sweeney’s Men, Dolly McMahon, Danny Doyle and many of the other musicians and singers that were playing in Folk clubs at that time. ‘My father was a great singer, and on long journeys the family used to sing in the car – I don’t remember a time in my life when I was not singing – I love songs.’
Throughout her career, Niamh has performed with a wide variety of artists, and has appeared at nearly every prestigious folk festival on either side of the Atlantic. As a member of the traditional Irish band Arcady (led by De Dannan’s Johnny ‘Ringo’ McDonagh), she sang on their Shanachie recording Many Happy Returns. She appeared before President Clinton and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern in Capitol Hill, Washington, joined Grammy Award winner Paul Winter for an album and a summer concert in New York, and performed on ‘A Prairie Home Companion’ when the show broadcast live from Dublin.
GRAHAM DUNNE
Dubliner Graham Dunne is a well-known guitarist in the Irish Traditional music scene. He is known for his sensitivity of touch as an accompanist, and his fiery ability as a soloist. Based in Ennis, Graham works as a full time guitarist with Niamh Parsons. For a year he worked with Sean Tyrell with whom he toured Ireland, France and Belgium, as well as working on the music for a documentary entitled “Necklace of Wrens”- a biographical account of the poet Michael Hartnett.
