Four decades after it was set up to bring live music to towns across Ireland, Music Network is marking its 40th anniversary with a one-night concert at glór in Ennis on Saturday 3 October. The evening brings together musicians from every part of its programme, including traditional, folk, jazz, song and classical.
Why Music Network matters
Music Network is Ireland’s national music touring and development organisation, established by the Arts Council in 1986. For most of those 40 years, its main work has been sending high-calibre musicians on tour to arts centres, churches and community venues well outside the big cities. One of its best-known achievements goes beyond concerts: it created Music Generation, the national music education programme, as a subsidiary company.
The anniversary year has already come through Clare once. Earlier this year, a 40th-anniversary tour featuring Noriana Kennedy, Kevin Burke, Dermot Byrne and Jim Murray played glór in February.
Your host: Ellen Cranitch
The concert is presented by Ellen Cranitch for RTÉ lyric fm’s Vespertine. Before becoming a broadcaster, Cranitch played flute with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra, then moved into composing for theatre, dance, radio and television. She joined RTÉ lyric fm in 2004. Vespertine goes out Friday to Sunday from 10pm to 1am and mixes classical, jazz, world and contemporary music. This is also a return role for her: she co-presented Music Network’s 30th-anniversary broadcast from RTÉ Studio 1 on Culture Night 2016.
The line-up
Mike McGoldrick, Nollaig Casey and Niall McCabe. This trio was formed through Music Network. Casey, a fiddle and viola player, has worked with Enya, Van Morrison, Sinéad O’Connor and Christy Moore, and was a member of Coolfin and Planxty. McCabe is a singer and guitarist known for his stories of growing up on a remote island. McGoldrick, a former BBC Folk Awards Musician of the Year, plays flute, whistles and uilleann pipes, has worked with Mark Knopfler since 2009, and is a core member of the Transatlantic Sessions. Casey is from Bandon, McCabe from Clare Island, and McGoldrick from Manchester.
Patrick stefan. This is the local connection on the bill. The singer-songwriter is from O’Briensbridge in Co. Clare. He is Irish-Dutch, and his influences include tribal songs learned in Mali, jazz guitar studied in Boston, folk singing in Helsinki and drumming in northern Brazil. He already has ties to both the organisation and the venue: in 2022 he received a Music Network RESONATE award, a residency scheme run in partnership with venues including glór. He also has a new EP, IM, due in September 2026.
The Carole Nelson Trio. Nelson is a London-born jazz pianist, saxophonist and composer who has lived in Ireland since 1986, the same year Music Network was founded. She first became known in the 1990s with the jazz-pop duo Zrazy. Her trio, with bassist Cormac O’Brien and drummer Dominic Mullen, began in 2015 as a one-off concert and became a lasting group. Their fourth album, Through the Storm, draws on the stories of two birds: the migrating swallow and the extinct Kauaʻi ʻōʻō.
Soprano Sarah Shine with pianist Dearbhla Brosnan. Shine is from Limerick and now lives in Turin. She has sung at the Bregenz Festival, with Irish National Opera and with Wexford Festival Opera, and she won the Siemens Opera Award after a performance at the Palais Garnier in 2018. Brosnan is widely considered one of Ireland’s leading accompanists and is resident accompanist at the Royal Irish Academy of Music.
Cellist Raphaela Gromes and pianist Julian Riem. These are the international guests, returning to a Music Network stage. The Munich duo toured Ireland for Music Network in April 2019 and gave the premiere of a new Kevin Volans work commissioned for that tour. Gromes has recorded for Sony Classical since 2016.
Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and Brendan Begley. Ó Raghallaigh plays a 10-string hardanger d’amore fiddle and is a member of The Gloaming. Begley is a button accordionist and singer from the Dingle peninsula, known for his work with Boys of the Lough and as a TG4 presenter. Their duo album is A Moment of Madness.
About the venue
glór opened in 2001 as the glór Irish Music Centre. It seats 485 and was designed by Des McMahon of Gilroy McMahon Architects to give audiences a close experience of Irish music. Part of Planxty’s reunion album Live 2004 was recorded there.
Support the music
As part of the anniversary, Music Network is running a “40 for 40” appeal that asks supporters to donate €40. The money goes toward keeping live music affordable and accessible in towns and villages across the country. musicnetwork
Know before you go
Date: Saturday 3 October 2026
Venue: glór, Causeway Link, Ennis, Co. Clare
Tickets: €20 / €18 concession (booking fee applies)
Book: glor.ie
More: musicnetwork.ie
