04-07-2025
Irish music legends announced for festival this September
Tickets go on sale Monday, July 7.
Tradition Now will return for its 14th year this September, with headliners including Damien Dempsey with National Symphony Orchestra Ireland, concertina player Cormac Begley, Irish folk quartet Landless and more.
The festival is hosted by the National Concert Hall (NCH) and performances will take place across various venues at the NCH Earlsfort Terrace campus from September 25 to 28.
NCH CEO Robert Readsaid this year's programmers aimed to spotlight Irish heritage while raising up contemporary voices.
'Tradition Now honours the roots of our musical identity while welcoming the new voices and ideas reshaping it,' Read said.
'This years edition of Tradition Now is particularly collaborative, and we are proud to present a programme that embodies the richness and diversity of Irish heritage while fostering innovation, inclusivity and connection.'
Vocal ensemble Le Mystre des Voix Bulgares will open the festival on the main stage alongside composer Georgi Andreev and Quarto Quartet, all three acts hailing from Bulgaria. Landless will join them for a cross-cultural showcase of the vocal harmonies and ballad styles, which are found in both Irish and Bulgarian traditional music.
Dublin's Damien Dempsey, who graced a holiday cover of Hot Press last year, will make his orchestral debut with the National Symphony Orchestra Ireland at the festival. Dempsey's most recent album, Hold Your Joy, was rated nine out of ten by Hot Press. Hot Press 's Will Russell said of Dempsey , 'Indisputably, this is an artist at the top of his game.'
On Saturday, the main stage will be taken over by 'Room to Rhyme', a so-called festival-within-a-festival curated by Cork writer Theo Dorgan and co-produced with the Irish Traditional Music Archive.
'Room to Rhyme' will feature over 15 traditional Irish artists, including Colm Mac Con Iomaire, oghan Ceannabhin, Colm Broderick and Andy Irvine. It aims to honour the tour of the same name undertaken in 1968 by the late Irish poets Michael Longley and Seamus Heaney and folk singer David Hammond.
The festival will also pay tribute to the late writer, artist and cartographer Tim Robinson in a special event commissioned for Crash Ensemble.
'Our Time in Space: A Tribute to Tim Robinson' will includecontributions from poet Moya Cannon, writer Fintan OToole, performer Olwen Four, folk duo Ye Vagabondsand more.
Cormac Begley will wrap up the festival in collaboration with various other Irish traditional artists.
Begley is fresh out of May's Drawing from the Well concert, where he took the stage with many of the artists performing at Tradition Now.
Tickets go on sale next Monday at 10:00 a.m. on the NCH website.
