Donegal Bay and Blue Stacks Festival continues with splendid programme of events

The annual Donegal Bay and Blue Stacks Festival continues this weekend and into next, with concerts, theatre and outdoor promenade events in Ballyshannon, Glenties and Ballybofey.

Donegal Voices at St Patrick’s, Ballyshannon
The weekend opens with the first performance since 2019 of the glorious Donegal Voices choir, who will perform Edward Elgar’s famous Bavarian Highlands song cycle at St Patrick’s Church, Ballyshannon this Friday night, October 7 at 7pm.
Conducted by Andrew Batchelor, with piano accompaniment by Marie Batchelor, the programme will also include music by Mozart, Handel, Haydn and Fauré. Featured soloists will include Deborah Cunningham, Pat Doherty and Paul Martin.
The concert will be repeated at St Connell’s Church, Glenties on Friday night next, October 14 at 8.30pm.

Donegal Fiddlers Glenties Concert
This Saturday night, October 8, sees the much anticipated Donegal Fiddlers Glenties Gathering concert at the Highlands Hotel.
This is the 40th year that Glenties has been a mecca for Donegal fiddle players – and for many others from further afield - and so the annual highlight of the Gathering, the Saturday night concert, will feature a selection of younger players who have grown up and taken to the music since the inaugural event in 1983. Among them will be Ciarán Ó Maonaigh, Megan Ní Fhionnghaile, Aidan O’Donnell, Melanie Houton, Nia Byrne, Conor Caldwell and Neil Kennedy.

Real-life New York taxi driver, John McDonagh

A New York Taxi Ride with John McDonagh
You can also take a virtual trip to New York City this weekend when real-life yellow cab driver John McDonagh brings his acclaimed Off The Meter one-man show to the Abbey Arts Centre, Ballyshannon on Saturday night, October 8, after a sold-out run at the city’s Irish Repertory Theatre.
John takes his audience on a fascinating and often hilarious ride through his 40 years behind the wheel of a New York yellow cab, through the ever-changing neighbourhoods of the city that never sleeps.
Tickets €15. Booking at www.abbeycentre.ie and at the Box Office on the night.

Annie Keating Band - Brooklyn to Ballybofey
Acclaimed Brooklyn-based Country singer and songwriter Annie Keating’s many admirers have likened her to Lucinda Williams, John Prine, Bonnie Raitt and Patty Griffin, to name but a few.
She brings her all-star rockabilly, country, blues band to the Balor Arts Centre, Ballybofey  in a Saturday night special - October 8, with Buncana threesome The Midnight Preachers. Tickets €15 Booking at T: (074) 9131840 and at the Box Office on the night.

Ballytour – Walking with The Ghosts of Ballyshannon’s Past
Ballytour – the walking tour where you can meet the ghosts of Ballyshannon’s past, including the O’Donnell chieftains, William Connolly MP, Mary Wollstonecraft, Lady Morgan and William and Mary Anne Allingham, among others - returns to Ballyshannon, this Sunday afternoon, October 9.
Walkers are invited to meet at St Anne’s Hall, Church Street at 3pm for a stroll back in time that will take about 75 minutes, in real-time. Ballytour is devised by Dark Daughter Productions and performed by Maura Logue, Eoghan MacGhiolla Bhríghde, Fiona Maria Fitzpatrick, Patrick McEneaney, Claire Falconer, Rhiannon Kerrigan, Tomás Ó Brogáin, Michael Bonner and a wide community cast.

Small Behaviours – Songs from A Witness Statement
Small Behaviours is a newly composed song cycle inspired by singer Kate O’Callaghan’s great-grand aunt Catherine Rooney and her involvement in the War of Independence, as detailed in her Witness Statement to the Irish Government’s Bureau of Military History. The work will be performed by Kate O’Callaghan and the Donegal Camerata String Quintet, for the very first time, at the Abbey Arts Centre, Ballyshannon, this Sunday, October 9 at 8pm. The work explores Catherine’s experiences following the Rising in Dublin, including gun-running from Scotland, encounters with British Army troops heading off to the Great War, prison breaks, ambushes and the burning of love letters in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday.
The Donegal Camerata String Quintet is led by cellist Victor Yelamo, a longtime member of the award-winning Concerto Malaga orchestra and director of the annual Donegal Chamber Music Festival. The Camerata also includes violinists Orsalya Szabó-Yelamo and Maureen McGranaghan, with Robert Peoples on viola and Michael McGinty on double bass.

Award-winning Irish folk singer Aoife Scott (above) is joined by Andy Meaney, Damien O’Kane ( Kate Rusby Band) and Ron Block ( Alison Krauss Union Station) for a brilliant Bluegrass and Irish night at the Balor Arts Centre, on Wednesday next, October 12 at 8pm

Aoife Scott, Damien O’Kane, Ron Block at The Balor
Next week’s highlights include Aoife Scott, a member of the famous Black family musical dynasty and one of the hottest names on the Irish Folk music scene, who will be joined by her regular collaborator Andy Meaney and banjo virtuosos Damien O’Kane (Kate Rusby Band) and Ron Block (Alison Krauss’s Union Station), for what will doubtless be a brilliant night of Irish Folksong and Bluegrass music, at the Balor Arts Centre, Ballybofey on Wednesday night, October 12, from 8pm. Tickets €15 Booking T: (074) 9131840 and online www.balorartscentre.com

Next Up
Festival audiences have much to look forward to over the coming weeks, with new shows by Aislingí Dance Academy (‘The Tale of Fairyfoot’), comedy and conversations with Deirdre O’Kane, Frankie McCafferty, Easkey Britton and Charlie McGettigan, the finest Jazz and Latin grooves with the Paul McIntyre Quartet, and music and from all over Europe with the Douzelage Festival of Europe in Bundoran. Full Details of which are now available on the festival website www.donegalbaybluestacks.com