Kilfenora Ceili Band Profile

The objective of the present band is simply to keep the flame burning - to play in the style of their ‘50s predecessors and bring the atmosphere and excitement they generated to a new generation of dancers and listeners. Their five albums are chock full of reels, jigs, marches and more. The music will bring a smile to the lips of all those who are fans of uncompromised ceili music in its original form - pure, undiluted and resplendent in all its old vim, verve and vigour.

In the past ten years, the resurgence of set dancing in both rural and urban areas inevitably brought a renewed demand for the services of ceili bands. Most of these have forsaken the large ten-piece format, a legacy of the days of bad or non-existent amplification. The norm these days seems to be three or four melody musicians with drums and keyboards. Such a unit is obviously far more viable from an economic point of view. However, the visual impact of the full sized band of ten or eleven musicians exuberantly driving out the music and sending dancers through the rafters has been sorely missed.

The present Kilfenora lineup carries on the torch of their forebears with great pride. When they repeated the achievement of their 1950's predecessors by winning the All-Ireland Ceili Band Competition for the third time in a row in ‘95, the atmosphere was electric and more than one old-timer in the audience remarked, teary-eyed that it was like listening to ghosts. The music was the same. Only the faces had changed. With three fiddles, two flutes, a banjo, accordeon, concertina, piano and drums, the group brew up a storm at all their functions - straight, upfront traditional music which wallops you right between the eyes. They usually wind up the night’s exertions with a turbo-charged twenty-five minute set, inducing strangled whoops of appreciation from heaving, sweating, puffing dancers.

The Band

Standing: Anne Marie McCormack, Anthony Quigney, Tim Collins, John Lynch, Garry Shannon, Conor McCarthy, Aidan McMahon Anne Rynne

Seated: Sean Griffin, Fintan McMahon

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Copyright © 2000 Kilfenora Ceili Band
Last modified: March 27, 2000