Kathleen Boyle Blog

Hi folks

Here’s a wee update of what I’ve been getting up to in the last few months. I’ve had a really busy Summer performing with Cherish the Ladies out in America and a few of my own gigs in Ireland.  I had a the pleasure of performing at the Cleveland Ohio festival in July as part of the Cherish the Ladies summer tour, we then went on to teach for a week at the Augusta Heritage week in Elkins, West Virginia.  It was a great week and was honoured to have been there teaching alongside such amazing Irish musicians.

In August I had a two gigs with the Kathleen Boyle band in Co Donegal. The first was at the Mary from Dungloe festival, a big thanks to all who stood out in the pouring rain to see us perform. I hope it was worth the drenching, I’ve never seen rain like it before!

On August 12th we had a concert in Ionad Cois Locha, Dunlewey, Co Donegal. We launched the album at the concert, followed by a few tunes in the infamous Hudai Beag’s in Gweedore. Thanks to all who came along to see the band and also to Ian Smith for his help in organising the gig, it was a fab night!

At the end of August I took the trip down to the All-Ireland Fleadh Ceol in Tullmaore, Co Offaly.  The rain didn’t put a dampener on the weekend as there was plenty of craic, tunes, drams and my family and I had a brilliant time staying in the camper-van for the weekend – it’s definitely the way to go to a fleadh!  On the Sunday night I performed in the Senior Ceili band competition with the St Roch’s Ceili band, we didn’t get place but had a blast anyways.

I headed back to America with Cherish at the end of August for a few gigs, two of which were our new show called “An Irish Homecoming”.  This is a concert series of Cherish the Ladies with special guests such as Maura O’Connell, Bohola, Dermot Henry and a troup of Irish Dancers, check out www.cherishtheladies.com for more details.

I have now just finished a tour of the UK with Cherish the Ladies, we played 11 gigs in 13 days in England, Scotland and Wales.  It was the bands first trip up to the Scottish Highland to perform at Blas festival, being the only Scottish member I took great pleasure in showing off the highlands to them.  I also performed at Blas with the wonderful Rachel Walker, the Gaelic singer from Spean Bridge and Ewan Robertson (guitar). Our concert on September 9th in Glenmorriston was filmed by the BBC for the new Gaelic TV channel and will be aired as part of the Blas series so look out for it.

I’m now off for 3 weeks before heading back to America with Cherish the Ladies for a really busy winter so going to enjoy the time at home catching up with friends and family.

Cheers for now

Kathleen