Donal Clancy in Concert

Coolbawn Road Productions and the Hibernian Cultural Centre are pleased to present an evening of Irish music featuring Dónal Clancy.  The concert will take place on Friday, August 26, 2016 p.m. at 8:00 p.m.  at the W.H.C.C. on 19 Temple Street in Worcester.

This will be Dónal’s second solo appearance at the Centre, his first concert in February of 2014 drew rave reviews from those who attended.

His father, Liam Clancy,  and uncles of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem were the first group to bring Irish folk song to a worldwide audience in the 1960's and Dónal grew up in a household and community steeped in music. He spent his early childhood in Canada and the US before his family settled back in An Rinn, Co.Waterford in 1983.

His father gave him his first guitar at the age of eight and he was playing professionally by his early teens. After returning from a residency at Delaney’s Irish Pub in Hong Kong in the mid-nineties, he co-founded the group Danú but left soon after to join a trio with his father, Liam, and cousin, Robbie O’Connell. Their debut tour in 1996 took them across the US, from the Santa Anita Race Track in Los Angeles to Lincoln Center in NY City. They continued to tour together for a couple of more years and recorded two albums before they disbanded in the late nineties.

In 1998, Dónal moved to New York where he became the go-to guitarist for many of the top Irish music acts. He contributed to albums and tours with Riverdance fiddler, Eileen Ivers, and was guest guitarist with The Chieftains on their Tears of Stone Tour in Japan and the US in 1999. From 2000 - 2002 he was a member of the Irish-American super-group Solas and in 2003 he re-joined the group Danú who would go on to become one of the most successful Irish bands today. He also contributed to the soundtrack of Ric Burns’ award-winning documentary film New York and in 2006 released his debut solo guitar album Close To Home which The Boston Globe dubbed "a sweet masterpiece of melodic grace and riveting groove".

In 2009, Dónal returned to live in Ireland with his wife, Mary and their three children. After his father’s death in 2012,  he began to focus his attention on the family repertoire of songs that he grew up with. This led to the recording of "Songs of a Roving Blade" a homage to his late father, uncles and Tommy Makem.  Sean Laffey, from Irish Music Magazine, called it "the goose-bump album of 2014".