Monday Afternoon: Concert
Afternoon Concert
In association with Irish Elderly Advice Network
- Eleanor Shanley and John McCartin
- London Irish Pensioner’s Choir
- Laoise Kelly and Josephine Marsh
Ivy Suite, The Crown Hotel
(Doors 2pm, Tickets £10/ £6 U18s)
Eleanor Shanley and John McCartin
Laoise Kelly and Josephine Marsh
Josephine Marsh is an accordion player/multi-instrumentalist and award-winning composer. Josephine comes from a musical east Clare/Co Meath family and began to play the accordion at the age of seven and cites her father Paddy as her earliest musical influence. From a very young age she began to perform on radio and television and recorded her first album with Cyril O’Donoghue at the age of twenty. Since then she has gone on to record three more albums: ‘Josephine Marsh’, ‘I Can Hear You Smiling’, with her band (The Josephine Marsh Band) and her latest release in 2018 – ‘Music in the Frame’. In 2020 Josephine was honoured with the prestigious Gradam Ceoil Award for composer of the year. Josephine and Laoise Kelly collaborated with Clare fiddler, Tara Breen and Cork singer and musician, Nell Ní Chróinín in the Music Network Ireland’s 2019 tour of Ireland and London.
The London Irish Pensioners Choir brings together more than 30 older Irish people, most in their 70s and 80s. They come from all over Ireland and have made their homes here in London over many decades. The choir was founded over 10 years ago. Although an independent group, it has been supported by the Irish Elderly Advice Network throughout this time. The choir has performed for audiences of tens of thousands including at London’s St Patrick’s Day celebrations in Trafalgar Square for several years, and as part of the Irish community choir in the Royal Albert Hall in honour of President Michael D Higgin’s state visit to Britain in 2014. They have sung on UK television, including for Sir Terry Wogan on ITV and on the BBC’s The One Show. They have performed on RTĖ Radio and Television, and are regularly played by Donncha Ó Dúlaing on the very popular Fáilte Isteach (10 pm on Saturday evenings on RTÉ Radio 1.) The choir has recorded a beautiful album of old Irish songs, Songs of Love and Emigration, which has been very popular with the Irish community, both in London and in Ireland.
