Event of the week
TradFest 2026
From Wednesday, January 21st, until Sunday, January 25th, various venues, times and prices, tradfest.com
The festival-calendar staple returns for five days of traditional music. The opening concert, Women of Note (Wednesday, January 21st, St Patrick’s Cathedral, 8.30pm, €26.99), features Aoife Scott, Clannad’s Moya Brennan, and the west Kerry sean nós singer Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh. Other highlights include Frankie Gavin Trio (Thursday, January 22nd, Áras Chrónáin, Clondalkin, 8.30pm, €19.99), Altan (Friday, January 23rd, Draíocht, Blanchardstown, 8pm, €30) and Transatlantic Women (Saturday, January 24th, National Stadium, 7.30pm, €29.99), the line-up for which includes Eleanor McEvoy, Altan’s Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, Katherine Priddy, Sharon Shannon and Peggy Seeger.
Gigs
The Next New Low
Saturday, January 17th, Whelan’s, Dublin, 8pm, €16, whelanslive.com
The three members of the Next New Low have been performing and recording solo works for years, but this is the first time that the guitarist and singer Brian Mooney, the pianist Daniel Smith (aka Daniel Luke) and the multi-instrumentalist Lizzi Murtough have combined their talents. Their music comes across as something like a marriage of Velvet Underground, Robert Forster and other low-key but highly influential acts. Highly recommended.
Emmylou Harris
Sunday, January 18th, 3Arena, Dublin, 6.30pm, €85.80/€77.25, ticketmaster.ie
When Gliding Bird, her debut album, came out, in 1970, Emmylou Harris was not an obvious contender for stardom. By 1975, however, (when she released Pieces of the Sky and Elite Hotel), she was firmly established as a standard bearer of smart country music. Since then the Alabama-born musician has swerved (Wrecking Ball, from 1996) and surprised (Red Dirt Girl, from 2000, and Stumble into Grace, from 2003. With no new studio album to promote – her last solo work was Hard Bargain, in 2011 – Harris, recently inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, will be focusing on her sterling back catalogue. This concert is part of the singer’s European Farewell Tour, so it’s probably the last time we’ll see the 78-year-old on stage in Ireland.
Grant-Lee Phillips
Tuesday, January 20th, Deer’s Head, Belfast, 8pm, £17.50 (sold out), cqaf.com; Wednesday, January 21st, Whelan’s, Dublin, 8pm, €30, whelanslive.com
Grant-Lee Phillips, one-time frontman of the California cult rock act Grant Lee Buffalo, released his early solo albums (Ladies’ Love Oracle, from 2000, and Mobilize, from 2001) to a level of acclaim his former band rarely achieved. Phillips is regarded as one of the most astute US songwriters of the past 40 years, veering towards folk-infused music that skilfully references his Native American ancestry – he’s Creek on his mother’s side, Blackfoot and Cherokee on his father’s.
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Gruff Rhys
Friday, January 23rd, Set Theatre, Kilkenny, 8pm, €27.50; set.ie; Saturday, January 24th, Róisín Dubh, Galway, 8pm, €28/€26, roisindubh.net
Gruff Rhys – son of two Welsh poets, Margaret Wynn Meredith and Ioan Bowen Rees – is best known as the lead singer of the experimental imps Super Furry Animals. His solo shows are similarly inclined towards surreality and mischief. Rhys’s most recent album, Dim Probs, the third in his native language, has received broad critical acclaim, with Clash magazine extolling its “relaxed warm humanity and beauty that, in the long run, may be more durable than much of his more lavish and accessible output”.
Festival
Homebeat: A Sliver of Light
From Friday, January 23rd, until Sunday, January 25th, Doolin, Co Clare, €155/€110, asliveroflight.ie
Presented in collaboration with Doolin Arts, this year’s arts and music event features shows from the Dublin-based English singer-songwriter Anna B Savage, Bog Jazz and Caoi De Barra, Germany’s Session Victim, Iceland’s JFDR and the emerging Irish acts Vatican Jail, Goldbug and Citrus Fresh. The weekend will also include curated talks and experiences, poetry/soundscape by Erin Fornoff and Patrick O’Laoghaire, and a special edition of RTÉ Lyric FM’s Ambient Orbit show.
Panel discussion
Wired Our Own Way
Saturday, January 17th, Smock Alley, Dublin, 5.45pm, €6, smockalley.com
The book Wired Our Own Way: An Anthology of Irish Autistic Voices, which was published in 2025, presented a collection of profoundly personal essays that explored multiple aspects of autism, from the impact of receiving a diagnosis to the ways the condition shapes lives. The writer and disability advocate Jen O’Connor moderates a panel conversation with Adam Harris of the autism charity AsIAm, the writer and performer Chandrika Narayanan Mohan and the author Niamh Garvey. As part of First Fortnight Festival, in partnership with New Island Books.
Visual arts
Mark Francis: Tracing Echoes
From Saturday, January 17th, until Saturday, March 14th, Solstice Arts Centre, Navan, Co Meath, free, solsticeartscentre.ie
Movement, tension, rhythm, agitation, energy: Tracing Echoes is a new exhibition by the London-based Co Down artist Mark Francis, whose forceful work is influenced by science, colour and sound, and generates an absorbing dynamic between stability and turmoil. Alongside new paintings and charcoal drawings, Francis presents his first moving-image work, Listening Field, an immersive piece that will also feature as part of his representation of San Marino at the 61st Venice Biennale, which runs from May to November).
Still running
Xander: Signs of Life
Until Saturday, January 24th, Gormleys, Belfast, free, gormleys.ie
The Newtownards artist Xander makes work with something of the spirit of that of surrealists such as Salvador Dalí; the artist himself describes it as “the product of a poetic imagination: sometimes light-hearted, sometimes ranging into the territory of benign nightmare”.
Book it this week
- Tony Cantwell, Vicar Street, Dublin, April 18th, ticketmaster.ie
- Blackwater Valley Opera Festival, May 26th-June 1st, Lismore Castle, Co Waterford, blackvalleyopera.ie
- When Next We Meet, Clonmel, Co Tipperary, May 29th-31st, whennextwemeet.ie
- Olivia Dean, Fairview Park, Dublin, June 20th and 21st, ticketmaster.ie
