Another year down, another pipers’ concert at the Spailpin for the Cork Folk Festival.  But what a concert we had this year!  Some familiar faces graced the stage including Dan O’Callaghan, Diarmaid Moynihan with a welcome return from Tomás O Canainn who, for me, was the highlight of the show with his piping, singing, stories, jokes and poetry!  This year also saw Kevin Moore make an accomplished stage debut, the first of many appearances in the coming years here I’m sure.  The variety of musicians and instruments is what made this year’s concert all the more special for me.  We had uilleann pipes, Galician pipes (gaita), pan pipes, war pipes, flutes, low whistles, and guitars.  In particular Anxo Lorenzo who you can see above with the Moynihans blew us away with the sweet sound of his Galician pipes.  Finally, it was great to meet the wonderful piper Jimmy Morrison who kicked off the show with some fine sets.  Unfortunately I don’t have any photos of him myself but I’m sure we’ll get a few in from our official photographer on the day (ahem John ).

I recorded the gig so expect to see some mp3s posted here in the coming days.

See the photos from the show below…

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This weekend sees a belated return of the Cork Folk Festival.  This year’s festival is being held about a month later so it brings to two the number of great festivals Cork has in October.

Cork Pipers’ Club concert is on tomorrow (October 3rd) upstairs in the Spailpin at 4pm.  There are a whole host of pipers playing there so it promises to be a fine feast of piping. The full line-up is Jimmy Morrison, John Byrne, Diarmuid Granger, Donal Ó Caoimh, Kevin Moore, Dan O’Callaghan, Donncha and Diarmuid Moynihan, and Cork’s gentleman piper Tomás Ó Canainn.

Tonight also sees the launch of an album by the aforementioned Cork piper Diarmuid Moynihan with his brother Donncha on guitar also in the Spailpin.  I look forward to getting my hands on ‘The Lights of Ranzico’ and will report back here on it.  Galician piper Anxo Lorenzo will also be in attendance and I hear a bunch of Celta de Vigo supporters will be present as Anxo is from a town nearby.

The Cork Folk Festival weekend promises to be a great trad weekend in Cork.  It’s just a pity we don’t have it more often than once a year!  There are plenty of sessions on in the pubs around Cork so keep an ear open for them.

Update: The night was a great success and we will be posting some video and mp3s from the evening in the coming week.  If you were there and you have some photos or video, we would appreciate if you could send them (or their links) onto us here by email to donal @ corkpipersclub.com.

The Cork Pipers Club are once again playing at this year’s Cork Folk Festival which is starting today and running until Sunday 5th October.  The pipers concert is on in the Spailpin Fanach on South Main Street at 4pm on Saturday.  This year we have Stephen Scales, Diarmuid Grainger and Dan O’Callaghan so there will be a feast of piping on display.  Admission is €8 on the door and we hope to see you there.