Evening Echo reporter Kevin O’Neill looks ahead to next week’s Ballincollig Winter Music Festival when 85 performers from four countries will entertain music fans with a range of folk, bluegrass and trad music.
SOME 85 musicians from four countries are set to descend on Ballincollig in the coming days as the White Horse bar stages its annual Winter Music Festival.
It is the eighth year of the festival, which welcomes a broad range of folk, traditional, bluegrass and Americana musicians, alongside its usual array of workshops, discussions and trad sessions.
Events kick-off on Tuesday evening, January 24, running until Sunday, January 29.
Topping the bill are multi-Grammy award winners and nominees, including Dirk Powell and Sarah Jarosz, as well as a huge range of local and national talent.
Marlene Enright, Joe Carey and Seamie Griffin of The Whitehorse, Ballincollig.
The Ballincollig Winter Music Festival runs until Sunday. Pic: Larry Cummins
It is an impressive success story for a small festival run at what is traditionally a quiet time of year.
Joe Carey, owner of the White Horse bar in Ballincollig, describes the original festival as a ‘leap into the unknown.’
He said, “It was the first time we had played music upstairs in the White Horse.
“January tends to be dark and bleak, so this is our way of shining a light on it. It also tends to be a quiet time for musicians.
“We were the only winter music festival in Ireland at the time. Celtic Connections runs in Glasgow at the same time, which has helped us to piggyback on a few acts being around.”
The lack of competitor festivals means the Winter Music Festival has snagged some big names over the years, including the likes of Paul Brady, Cathy Davey and Ham Sandwich.
The Hot House Flowers celebrated their 30th anniversary at the Winter Music Festival while, in 2016, Martha Wainwright made the trip to Ballincollig, a huge boost for the festival.
Mr Carey paid tribute to Marlene Enright, the festival’s booker, who works tirelessly throughout the year to bag the big names.
Enright, a musician in her own right as both a solo artist and a member of the Hard Ground, has brought an impressive array of artists to the table for this year’s event.
The bill includes many of the best-known names in Irish trad music, including Donal Lunney and Zoe Conway, as well as indie and folk artists like the Frank & Walters, Mick Flannery and Jack O’Rourke.
Mick flannery
Cork-formed Two Time Polka will perform, as will Máirtín O’Connor, Kevin Burke and John Blek.
In all, 85 musicians will take part in the festival, coming from the US, Germany, all over the UK and Ireland.
For some, like headline act Sarah Jarosz, it is a 12,500 mile trip from her Texan home.
For others, like Blarney’s Mick Flannery, it is just a few minutes down the road.
Mr Carey said the ethos of the festival hasn’t changed much of the years.
“We are a small festival, but a well-formed one that doesn’t necessarily follow the set format for festivals.”
Ticket prices, for example, have not changed over the years. Headline events cost €20 whether the performer is a multi-Grammy award nominee or a local musician debuting an album.
There are also a huge range of free events, including trad sessions, to ensure that as many people as possible can get in to enjoy the festival.
In addition, the festival has always strived to bring artists together for unique shows.
Mr Carey recalls one such event when trad musician Brian Morrissey performed with Basque accordionist Kepa Junkera.
“Brian doesn’t speak Spanish and Kepa doesn’t speak English,” he said.
“They had never met before the night and they just went with it – the shared language of music.
“It was a wonderful, magical evening.”
This year’s bill features a number of one-off shows, with Jack O’Rourke’s partnership with Hattie Webb among the most exciting.
O’Rourke hit number five in the Irish charts last year and met Webb at Other Voices in Dingle when they were both invited to play with Glen Hansard of the Frames.
Webb is best-known as one-half of the Webb sisters, a duo who performed as Leonard Cohen’s backing band until his recent death.
“They just hit it off. It should be very special,” Mr Carey said.
Singer Jack O’Rourke
Locally, the Winter Music Festival has been embraced.
January tends to be a quiet time for all involved, with music fans saving their money for bigger events later in the year and bars letting dust gather on their tables after a hectic few weeks.
For the staff at the White Horse, though, attentions immediately turn from Christmas to the last week of January as excitement grows among regulars.
“We usually start getting enquiries in October,” Mr Carey said.
“And we always look out for feedback emails, too.
“But we have been lucky. For a lot of people it has been a hard eight years and, yet, we are still always 90-95% sold out for most shows. We have never had a quiet room.
“It is always a lovely way to end January. Our attentions turn to it straight after Christmas.”
This success comes back to efforts to root the event in the community, according to its organisers.
Mr Carey said that they have brought musicians of all sorts to schools and classrooms, hospitals and old folks homes and, even, shopping centres.
This is in addition to the usual array of free events for all ages which, this year, includes The Quiet Tree, an intimate traditional music, storytelling and puppetry performance for young children; Culture Vultures, a series of interviews presented by broadcaster and author Tony Clayton-Lea; and a series of afternoon concerts.
When pressed, Mr Carey said he is struggling to pick a highlight from this year’s programme.
“Genuinely, it’s like a father picking between his children,” he joked.
“I will be at them all and I will enjoy them — as a musician and a music fan.”
He concedes, though, that securing Kevin Burke’s appearance is a particular boon this year.
Burke, a master fiddler considered by many to be among the best in the world, has been on the Winter Music Festival’s radar for eight years.
He is American-based, posing an issue for booking, but they finally managed to snag him for the 2017 edition.
Mr Carey said, “It’s a real triumph for us.”
Burke will perform on Sunday, January 29, as part of the closing event of this year’s festival, joining the trio of Donal Lunney, Zoe Conway and Máirtín O’Connor.
Mr Carey is confident, though, that the likes of Sarah Jarosz, who has three Grammy nominations this year alone, Hattie Webb and Jack O’Rourke may be more difficult to book in future years as they go on to bigger and better things.
He said, “In all, we’re just very excited to welcome everyone to our corner of the world for a few days.”
For full details on all events, see wintermusicfestival.ie or check out the White Horse on Facebook.
Tickets remain available for some events, though demand is high and fans are advised to move fast to avoid disappointment.
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