Fil Campbell and Tom McFarland return to the Abbey Centre in Ballyshannon

Fil Campbell and Tom McFarland return to the Abbey Centre in Ballyshannon on  Friday, September 6, joined on fiddle by Colette McAree from Laghey.  

Based now in Belleek, Co Fermanagh, having recently moved from Co Down, they have been performing as a duo since the early 90s while Fil performed solo right through the 70s and 80s. The combination of two vocals, guitar and percussion, and a mix of original, contemporary and traditional songs, lots of choruses and the Irish gift of chat and craic has brought them around the world many times. 

Shoreline, their latest CD, is a collection of self-penned, quirky original songs from both singers along with a few well-chosen covers, reflecting the times we live in as well as stories from the road told in song.  

Fil, who some of you will know as Phil, was born and brought up in Belleek and has recently moved back with her husband Tom to live in the home house.  

Her connection with Ballyshannon is long-standing - she and Tom first appeared at the Ballyshannon Folk Festival in 1993 with their first album and it’s almost as many years before that since she started learning Irish dancing with May Kelly in the  Market Yard in Ballyshannon, And of course her mother Marguerite was a native of the town, from Dunmuckrim.  

As well as being a songwriter and singer, Fil has presented tv documentaries for RTE,  has been a radio presenter for BBC and is a voice coach and group singing leader specialising in working with adults who were told they can’t sing. Fil’s song  Dreaming won the Letterkenny Song Contest in 1994 

She changed the spelling of her name when another Phil Campbell was releasing an album the same week as her back in 2000. It is such a common name for men that there is a town in America called Phil Campbell!!!  

Tom originally from Belfast is a songwriter, multi-percussionist (bodhran, congas,  eggs etc) and drummer and runs a small recording and video editing studio.  

His song “Bird’s Song” has been translated into German and Portuguese and is being taught in schools as far apart as Argentina and Australia.  

He built his first recording studio to record the songs when Fil made the Songbirds TV series for RTE documenting the songs and lives of Delia Murphy, Mary O’Hara and Bridie Gallagher and the songs she had learned as a child from her mother.  

He has played live and in session with artists as diverse as David Knopfler (ex-Dire Straits), Finbar Furey, John Wright and Ben Sands.