Seán and Ellen Potts

Seán Potts was born in 1967 into a family steeped in traditional music. His father, Seán, was a founding member of The Chieftains, while his great grandfather, John Potts, father of Tommie Potts, was a renowned uilleann piper who moved from South Wexford to Dublin in the 1890s. Seán Potts Snr was former chairman and president of Na Píobairí Uilleann and spent the latter part of his life promoting the instrument.

Seán has toured internationally and performed extensively, playing and recording with Bakerswell, the Donal Lunny Band, Na Connerys, Tommy Peoples, Kevin Glackin, Paddy Glackin, Ciaran Tourish, Arty McGlynn, Paul McGrattan, Siobhan Peoples, Steve Cooney, Paul Brady, Seán Potts Snr, John Blake, Seán Keane, Daoirí Farrell, Peadar Ó Riada & Ceoltóirí Chualann and Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh. He produced the solo recording Seán Potts, Traditional Music on the Uilleann Pipes (2002).

Appointed to the staff of the Irish Traditional Music Archive (ITMA) in December 2021, Seán headed an Arts Council Commissioned project A Portrait of an Artist: Seán Keane, screened at Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy 2022 and released publicly following Seán Keane’s sudden death in May 2023. Seán is author of Tommie Potts: The Sorrowful and the Great, published by ITMA in October 2025.

Ellen Potts was born in Dublin in 2003. The daughter of piper Seán Potts and a great-grandniece of Tommie Potts, she received tuition on the fiddle from Kevin Glackin and Doireann Glackin, and later from Liam O’Connor and Jesse Smith, and at the annual Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy. 

Ellen has appeared on several TG4 music programmes, including the recent Ceolaireacht series with Doireann Glackin. In 2024, she performed at ITMA’s Drawing from the Well Concert, celebrating the life and music of Tommie Potts, and in 2022 was part of the Ó Ghlúin go Glúin ensemble of young female artists at the Liam O’Flynn Concert. She studies Architecture at UCD.