Julie Fowlis, Éamon Doorley, Zoë Conway & John Mc Intyre

Four influential traditional musicians from Ireland and Scotland have collaborated to create new music and songs inspired by modern and ancient Irish and Scottish Gaelic poems.

Julie Fowlis, Éamon Doorley, Zoe Conway and John Mc Intyre have been working together over the past 18 months setting music to a diverse collection of poetry, which culminated in special performances of the new works at Scotland’s Gaelic College, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig in September and the National Concert Hall, Dublin, in October 2017.

Whilst modern Gaelic poetry has remained strong in Ireland and Scotland, the composition of the traditional 'big' songs has declined significantly within the sphere of traditional arts in both countries and this project is a personal and collaborative response to that.

This project has been inspired by the work of Seán Ó Riada, Peadar Ó Dubhda, Padraigín Ní Uallacháin and others who breathed new life to Gaelic poetry whilst also renewing and rejuvenating traditional music by adding to its corpus new and fitting 'traditional' airs.