Oíche Áirneáil le Maighread agus Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill agus Fear an Tí, Cathal Ó Searcaigh
20 July, 2020 @ 8:00 pm
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Fear an Tí, Cathal Ó Searcaigh hosts an evening of spoken word and music at Dámhlann an Ghleanna with two of Ireland’s most celebrated artists.
Born in Kells, County Meath, sisters Maighread and Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill belong to a renowned family of singers, originally from the Donegal Gaeltacht of Rann na Feirste.
With their late brother Mícheál, they formed the seminal Skara Brae band in 1971 where they pioneered the use of vocal harmonization in the performance of Irish language songs. Theirs was a rich repertoire that they inherited from their father Hiúdaí, their Aunt Neilí and other Gaeltacht singers such as Róise na nAmhrán of Oileán Árainn Mhór.
Following Skara Brae, Tríona and Mícheal enjoyed hugely influential careers as members of The Bothy Band and of the innovative Portland-based ensembles, Relativity and Nightnoise. Having built a career in healthcare, Maighread returned to performing professionally in 1991 with the issue of her solo CD, Gan Dhá Phingin Spré.
The sisters’ first CD as a duo, Idir Dhá Sholas, was issued by Gael Linn in 1999. A few years later, they joined up Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh of Altan, and Clannad’s Moya Brennan to form Donegal’s first traditional supergroup, T with The Maggies.
From the townland of Mín an Leá, Gort an Choirce, longtime Aosdána member Cathal Ó Searcaigh is one of Ireland’s leading writers in the Irish language. His most recent publications include Crann na Teanga/The Language Tree (Irish Pages 2018) – an extensive selection of poems in translation, across seventeen career defining collections – and The View From The Glen (Onslaught Press, Oxford 2018), a collection of prose reflections on Irish poetry, music, landscape and environment.
With poet and critic Chris Agee, Cathal is also co-editor (Irish language) of the Belfast-based literary journal, Irish Pages.
