Innisfree Céilí Band Bio

The Innisfree Céilí Band grew up playing together, and it shows. Led by Oisín Mac Diarmada of Téada, one of Ireland’s leading working groups, this Sligo band blends its instruments into a seamless musical voice, capturing the dramatic energy and drive that remains such a feature of North Connaught music. Gifted with a rare sweetness and clarity of tone, the band has played a key role in the revival of céilí band music and in 2008 became the first band from the North Connacht region to win the coveted All-Ireland Senior Céilí Band Competition. With reels and jigs played with passion and flair, the Innisfree Céilí Band are guaranteed to get your feet moving. As one reviewer wrote, “if you don't dance, you'll wish you did” (Irishphiladelphia.com). 2010 sees the band perform at numerous festivals such as Kilkenny Arts Festival and Carrick-on-Shannon Watermusic Festival, in both céilí and concert formats.The North Connacht musical tradition of counties Sligo, Leitrim and Roscommon, and its strong association with the fiddle and flute, played a key role in the early recordings of Irish traditional music during the early 20th century. Emerging from this era, names such as Coleman, Morrison, Killoran and McKenna left a stylistic mark on music throughout Ireland and the United States, a rich heritage maintained in subsequent decades throughout the North Connacht region by a legion of superb musicians including Fred Finn and Peter Horan. 

Influenced by the legacy of this highly-developed musical environment, the Innisfree Céilí Band comprises a generation of musicians who grew up playing together, fusing individual skill through a shared stylistic impulse, to produce a distinctive and mature musical voice. Defined by a rare sweetness and clarity of tone, the band succeeds in capturing the dramatic energy and drive which is a strong element of both North Connacht music and the genre of the céilí band itself.   In 2008, the Innisfree became the first céilí band from the North Connacht region to win the coveted All-Ireland Senior Céilí Band competition at Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann. 

Band Members



Fiddles

Cormac Mac Diarmada, Sligo * Oisín Mac Diarmada, Sligo * Damian O’Brien, Leitrim

Flutes

Finbar McGreevy, Roscommon * Máire Nic Dhiarmada, Sligo * David Sheridan, Leitrim * Damien Stenson, Sligo

Accordions

Paul Finn, Laois * Oliver Loughlin, Leitrim

Piano

Charles O’Connor, Sligo 

Drums

Daragh Kelly, Sligo