Releases > Releases June 2026

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DERVISH
The Great Irish Songbook Volume 2: Poets & Storytellers
Down the Road Records, 11 Tracks, 46 Minutes www.dervish.ie
You can judge a person by the company they keep and in the case of Dervish they keep some pretty impressive friends on this, their second offering in their Great Irish Songbook series. In a departure from their previous release, this is an album of folk and country flavoured songs from contemporary  writers.
Straight off the bat with the opening of John Spillane’s Passage West sung by Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls. Aoife O’Donovan’s voice is backed by an interplay of strings and whistles as they build tension on Sinéad O’Connor’s song Jackie, a ghost story about a fisherman who never came home. Things get calmer on the Ye Vagabonds lullaby Blue Is The Eye, sung here by Sarah Jarosz: Lie down and sleep, sleep well, my darling, Blue is the eye that looks after thee.
Cathy Jordan is at her magnificent best on Shane MacGowan’s The Broad Majestic Shannon. This is classic Dervish, lyrical, romantic, a whistle weaving the melody with a stitch of melancholy. The song itself has become so popular that places named in it are now on the tourist trail in North Tipperary.
Glen Hansard sings his own song Leave a Light On; there’s a shade  of reverb here and Glen’s is the first male voice we hear on the album. In contrast Madeleine Peyroux’s version of Jimmy McCarthy’s As I Leave Behind Neidin brings her light, airy, female vocals to the track, she gives it an Americana gloss.
Perhaps given recent sad events, Track 10: Tobar an tSaoil -The Well Of The World, recorded by Moya Brennan will now have an extra special resonance. Dervish arrange the song expertly that it reminds us of those early groundbreaking Clannad albums.
The final track is a big surprise from the Del McCoury Band, singing The Town I Loved So Well. It is as bluegrass as Derry has ever been, complete with a five string banjo, and a mandolin chopping tremolo.
Dervish prove on Volume 2 they can play anything, from Sligo to Texas, and without doubt they are masters of the folk-vibe.
Seán Laffey

AOIFE Ní BHRIAIN & CORMAC McCARTHY
Cosán Casta
Ceirníní Casta, 12 Tracks, 45 Minutes
www.aoifeandcormac.bandcamp.com
There’s quite a melting pot of styles here as Aoife and Cormac weave their way from the very traditional to the quite contemporary on fiddle and piano, through a broad landscape including classical and jazz influences. Both players are steeped in Irish music, but have explored other paths too, giving them great technical and artistic flexibility and allowing them to thread a twisting route through music old and new. The result is a fascinating exploration of ancient Irish tunes alongside fresh compositions and variations. At times Cosán Casta evokes Ó Riada, The Bothy Band, Martin Hayes, Kevin Burke and other familiar names from the evolution of traditional Irish music - at other times it’s entirely its own creature, twisting Crowley’s Reel into new shapes or chilling in the urbane Coffee Club.
Most tracks here are based on an old melody or two: Cailleach an Airgid, The Butterfly, Gallagher’s Frolics, The Salamanca, and of course The Scary Monster, which has hopped from genre to genre down the years. There are two totally new compositions, one each from McCarthy and Ní Bhriain, both tidy pieces: Planxty SK is one which might well be picked up by other fiddlers. The sound throughout is sweet, precise, nothing too flamboyant, just enough to get the best out of these old melodies. There’s a good balance between fiddle and piano, with Cormac taking the lead occasionally, and adding a touch of Chopin nocturne to the final track before the fiddle picks up the melody line.
If you’re open to a new take on some well-known tunes, I’d highly recommend this album.
Alex Monaghan

SEÁN HEELY & BETH PATTERSON
Stir the Blood to Fire
Own Label, 12 Tracks, 50 Minutes, 37 Seconds
seanheely.bandcamp.com/album/stir-the-blood-to-fire
Beth Patterson and Seán Heely both have seen plentiful sides of the Celtic music coin from playing with bands to pursuing solo careers of their own distinction.
Fiddle legend Liz Carroll calls Seán “one powerhouse of a fiddler”, US National Scottish Fiddle Champion as well as an award-winning Irish Fiddler and folksinger specialising in Scottish Gaelic. Currently based in Washington D.C, Seán performs locally and
abroad with the Seán Heely Celtic Band and The Glencoe Lads. Beth Patterson has seen her share of classy bands from The Poor Clares to many more, and nine solo CDs and appearances on Spinal Tap II: The End Continues and has performed in over twenty countries across five continents.
This makes for a heady combination and Stir the Blood to Fire is a delightfully eclectic collection of traditional songs, tunes that cross the borders from traditional to contemporary forms and back again with an almost gleeful abandon. It also includes plentiful nods to Renaissance and Medieval stylings and ideals. Heely’s voice suits Allan Tyne of Harrow and Socair Ort, a Dhomhnaill Seall with sumptuous arrangements making for rich listening, and his fiddle work on The Banks/Madame Neruda display supreme command, while Beth Patterson’s dynamic bouzouki accompaniment is rock solid, while her vocals vary from the traditional Laugh and Half Daft from Sean Corcoran to the Cajun Christmas Two Step. Planxty Fanny Power is combined with the Scots Gaelic Oran Eile don Phrionnsa in a stirring collaboration with Patterson’s bass guitar and Heely’s harp combining harmoniously.
Variety is plentiful from Eastern treatments of traditional ballads, medieval instrumentals to semi folk-rock blasts, all played with dexterity, skill and accomplishment. Stir the Blood to Fire is both stirring and fiery and has plenty of musical highlights to commend it. An excellent collection from two exemplary individual stylists.
John O’Regan

megaTRAD
It Begins with A…
Own Label, 7 Tracks, 57 Minutes  www.megatradmusic.com
megaTRAD consisting of Cillian O’Dalaigh, Sean O’Dalaigh, and Denis McAuliffe have been kicking up their own brand of dust on the Irish circuit. They are fundamentally different to most Irish traditional bands as their sets are not just strictly jigs and reels. The reels and jigs are merely the launch pad for extended improvisation and jams. They like to jam and their tracks sometimes cut through long gestated pieces sort of like The Grateful Dead, Man, Amon Duul II and Quicksilver Messenger Service used to in the hazy psychedelic period and David Grissman and Mark O’Connor have purveyed more recently in the Newgrass domain.
The last comparison is important as megaTRAD, being acoustic, their music belongs in the Celtic/Newgrass crossover realm. Their musical roots are in Irish traditional sounds and styles but within the mix, strains of Americana, Bluegrass, Classical, Eastern and Jazz styles got melted and moulded into the outcome. It’s an eclectic mix, and its improvisational style is one that excites and exhilarates live and demands open ears, but the rewards are many.
The basic line up of guitar, stomp box, fiddle and mandolin are treated with electronics, banjo and loop pedals to create a fulsome, heady exciting brew. Smile opens the account, a swirling cauldron of movement and musical alchemy, while occasional vocal tracks like Storm exhibit a love for American folk music that will cross them into audiences transfixed by We Banjo 3 and JigJam. The live immediacy transfers well through the recorded idiom, and megaTRAD’s magic easily makes the studio cut.
While they are best experienced live for extra effect and magnitude, their chemistry travels well on disc. It begins with A… is a powerfully accomplished and dexterously creative debut. Watch them, they will be MEGA.
John O’Regan

AILIE ROBERTSON
Echoes from Torloisk
Own Label LORRCD10, 18 Tracks, 49 Minutes www.ailierobertson.com
Doyenne of the Scottish clarsach, Ailie Robertson has won almost as many prizes as her harp has strings. Her previous recordings range from the very traditional to the strikingly contemporary, solo or with accompanists from a handful to a full orchestra. On this album Ms Robertson presents a selection of music from a collection by two sisters on the Hebridean island of Mull in the very early 1800s. Margaret and Anna-Jane Maclean-Clephane played an Erard harp, a step between the simple Celtic harp and the modern pedal harp: Ailie plays some of these pieces on a similar instrument to recreate that 1800s sound, and others on a modern clarsach. She is accompanied on a few tracks by guitarist Miguel Girão, but otherwise this is a true solo offering.
The material on Echoes from Torloisk is among the oldest written examples of Gaelic minstrelsy, from an era where the line between Scottish and Irish music was blurred at best. Mull is as close to Ireland as it is to Edinburgh as the crow flies, and much closer by sea or road, so these tunes were probably shared across Gaeldom. Some of the titles make this very clear: Miss Dillon of Loch Glen, Roscommon or Cradle Song of the Wives of Connaught for example. Most of these pieces are “puirt”, or listening tunes, and they are certainly worth listening to. Some are short, less than a minute - others are over four minutes. All have the grace and charm of Carolan or Rory Dall, harking back to the great harpist composers of yore, beautifully evoked by Ailie Robertson’s performance.
Alex Monaghan

CIARÁN RYAN
Kick Up the Dust
Own Label, 8 Tracks, 44 Minutes
www.ciaranryan.bandcamp.com
From the cover it’s clear that this is going to be a fun album, and it doesn’t disappoint. There’s hardly a miserable moment on Kick Up the Dust, the third album from this Edinburgh-based tenor banjo wizard, who may be familiar from bands such as Dallahan and more recently Shooglenifty.
On this recording, Ciarán plays to the strengths of the banjo with a mix of Irish, Americana, and Scottish folk, pretty much all his own compositions, many with great names and some which will certainly slip quickly into the session repertoire. Starting with Cheap and Nasty, what you might call a “greengrass” tune mixing Irish and Appalachian, the opening set then moves to a straight-ahead contemporary reel before finishing with a funky little number that sticks sweetly in the head like a well-aimed teacake.
The banjo is supported by Tom Callister’s fiddle, Ryan Murphy’s pipes and flute, Luc McNally’s bouzouki, Amy Laurenson’s piano, Craig Baxter’s bodhrán, and the drums of Greg Barry. Ciarán switches the lead to fiddle for the beautiful Tune for Rose, the only slow piece here, breaking up an intense programme of dance music: reels and jigs, plus more reels and jigs. The driving title medley with The Rocks of Solitude and Robbie’s Reel is a highlight for me with its hints of Gordon Duncan, as is the cheeky wee slide The Wanderer shortly before the closing Sausage Gate.
It’s funky, it’s folky, but most of all Kick Up the Dust is a fantastic collection of banjo-led music which will lift your heart and tickle your toes.
Alex Monaghan

FIÁROCK
An Tús
Own Label, 13 Tracks, 44 Minutes
www.fiarock.com
Fiárock are: Clíona Halley (concertina), Darragh Carey-Kennedy (banjo), Evan Powell (piano), and Nicolle Fig (bodhran). With two of the members from across the pond, Evan is based in Austin, Texas and Nicolle is from Mexico, there’s some exotic blending in the track selection such as La Llorona and El Arrancazacate.
I was lucky to see the official launch of this excellent debut album back last winter at Brú Boru in Cashel, where Clíona and Darragh are regulars in the centre’s summer sessions. Fiárock have connections to the University of Limerick, where bodhrán player Nicolle Fig first got the idea of putting the band together.
Solid Irish tunes are played with lift and authority such as Statia Donnelly’s, an adroit combination of banjo and concertina, with the latter playing a counterpoint, and Fig’s bodhrán anchoring the  fundamental beat, a feature permeating the whole album. The bodhrán taking on the role of a bass-player, Fig eschewing florid triplets and concentrating on the low end of the drum. Pastelles Hop Jigs is a set of very happy tunes, which starts simply and builds up into a big reel at the end, the piano hitting echoing chords, one to keep your toes in motion.
There are songs too: The Banks of the Bann a jaunty version, you may know the tune as Be Though  My Vision, perhaps the sweetest melody ever to come out of Antrim? On The Verdant Braes of Screen, Nicolle is accompanied by Evan’s piano. Things become a little more medieval on False Lover John, which is a version of Child ballad Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight, and was collected from Corney McDaid in Buncrana, Donegal.
The album closes with The Green Forest, a dance tune, very much in the swinging Waterford style. As debuts go, this is a podium finish. Gold medals all round!
Seán Laffey

TRÍONA & MAIGHREAD NÍ DHOMHNAILL
Seo Muid - Here’s Us
Own Label, CeolTAM 000, 10 Tracks, 42.46 Minutes
trionaandmaighreadnidhomhnaill.bandcamp.com
They were among those who brought Donegal’s music and songs to a wider audience, notably as part of the group Skara Brae on their sole album released in 1971, alongside their brother Mícheál Ó Domhnaill.
They then went their separate ways. Tríona went on to play with various bands, including the legendary Bothy Band, Relativity, Touchstone and Nightnoise. Her sister Maighread took a step back from the music scene for a while. Yet they remained very close, and in 1999 they released an album with Dónal Lunny. More than 25 years after that superb album, the Ní Dhomhnaill sisters have reunited to bring us a truly beautiful album, Seo Muid – Here’s Us.
Having sung together since they were very young, this time they have brought together songs that, for the most part, they had never recorded, even though they had been singing them for decades. There are ten tracks here: five songs in Irish, four in English and, most unusually, one in Breton, ‘Kouskit’, a lullaby heard and learnt by Tríona over 50 years ago in the Pays Vannetais, where the  Breton musician Pol Huellou had recovered the lyrics for this song.
We hear a few standards from the Irish tradition such as Cad É Sin Don Té Sin, a very famous song covered by both Irish and Breton musicians. But this time the two sisters have arranged several versions of this song, and the melody is entirely new. There is also Cailín Deas Cúiseach Na Mbó, a song learnt from their aunt Neilí, just like It’s Not In the Morning. Or Cumha An Fhile, written and composed by S.B. MacGrianna, a poet from Rann na Feirste, the birthplace of the Ó Domhnaill family.
We also recognise No Come Again, a song by Eddie Butcher, originally from County Derry. And Once I Knew a Pretty Girl, which featured on a Joan Baez recording in the 1960s.
At the helm of the album is guitarist and accordionist Seán Og Graham, who, during the recording, brought out the very best in them, particularly showcasing the absolutely magnificent voices of Maighread and Tríona. Let’s not forget Niamh Dunne on the fiddle and Conor McCreanor on the double bass. Surely one of the best albums of 2026.
Philippe Cousin