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THE ARTS:After listening to each other sing in John Benny’s bar in Dingle for years, Pauline Scanlon and Éilís Kennedy decided to ‘throw a few songs around’. The result is getting the works from the Sony machine, writes BRIAN O’CONNELL

IT’S LUNCHTIME IN John Benny’s bar on Strand Street in Dingle. Outside, steamy tourists caught in the downpour take shelter in doorways. Inside, bodies wearing yesterday’s clothes scan the racing pages or nervously eye bowls of vegetable soup. To chance it, or not to chance it – that is the question. Six nights a week, music is played in the bar, and it’s not your run-of-the-mill “come all ye” classics. Musicians such as Damien Mullane, Tommy O’Sullivan, Dessie Kelleher, Aoife Granville, Cillian Ó Briain, John Benny or Donogh Hennessy sustain themselves throughout the summer honing their craft there.