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DkIT Lecturer Presents at NAFCo

25 July 2018

This year's North Atlantic Fiddle Convention (NAFCo), saw lecturer Dr Daithí Kearney, co-director of the DkIT Creative Arts Research Centre, travel from his home in Ardee on the River Dee to Aberdeen on Scottish Deeside, to present on South Armagh fiddle player Josephine Keegan.



Originally from Co. Kerry, Daithí first got to know Josephine when he moved to Co. Louth and quickly struck a friendship through occasional sessions in Newry. They shared stories of her life in music, which included many seminal recordings, international tours and a musical partnership with many leading players in Irish traditional music including Sean Maguire and Joe Burke.

In 2012 Daithí produced a concert with the DkIT Traditional Music Ensemble dedicated to Josephine’s music and celebrating her career. Josephine became the first honorary member of the Ensemble and Daithí continued to promote awareness of Josephine’s role in Irish traditional music. She will feature at this year’s Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in Drogheda, in a concert celebrating the fiddlers of Oriel.

At this year's NAFCo, Daithí also participated in a facilitated conversation with Catríona MacDonald, Senior Lecturer in Music at Newcastle University. This session aimed to interrogate the roles that performers and researchers often replicate in music & dance scholarship. Both Daithí and Catríona combined their roles as both performers and researchers and considered their shared interest in the influence of the music of Shetland in Norway and Ireland, as well as third-level traditional music education.

Indeed Daithí will return to Scotland later in July with Dr Adèle Commins, Head of Department of Creative Arts, Media and Music at DkIT, with whom he recorded the album of new compositions 'A Louth Lilt' last year. For their performances at Speyfest, they will be joined by a number of students from DkIT with the support of Culture Ireland, under the GB18 programme.


About NAFCo

The North Atlantic Fiddle Convention (NAFCo) is a cultural exchange and meeting place for artists, academics, and enthusiasts. At its heart is a convention that brings together scholars, practitioners, teachers and other stakeholders to share ideas, practices, research and knowledge about the field of fiddle performance and related dance.


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