Abair | Bothy/Bothán
An Evening of Songs and Stories from Ireland and Scotland
‘Bothy/Bothán is an international collaboration of music and shared history, co-curated by folk singers Macdara Yeates and Steve Byrne. Using the work songs of both countries as a central theme, the event brings together artists from Scotland and Ireland to explore shared traditions and folk customs, covering everything from songs of migrant farm labourers in the North East of Scotland to the centuries-old ballads of emigrant Irish workers on the neighbouring isle.
Featuring
Landless (Ire)
Choras (Sco)
Len Graham (Ire)
Scott Gardiner (Sco)
Steve Byrne (Sco)
and Macdara Yeates (Ire)
ABAIR is an annual oral traditions programme taking place as part of the St. Patrick’s Festival which explores the Irish traditions of storytelling, song, and oral history and traces their links around the world. Curated by traditional singer Macdara Yeates, and now in its 6th year, the multi-format programme offers a wide array of concerts, pop-ups and storytelling sessions that examine the relationship between the sung and spoken word in Ireland and abroad (the Irish word ‘Abair’ translates roughly as both ‘to say’ and ‘to sing’).
ABAIR is supported by the Arts Council Traditional Arts Fund.
Landless
Landless are Ruth Clinton, Meabh Meir, Sinead Lynch and Lily Power. They sing unaccompanied traditional songs from Irish, Scottish, English and American traditions in close four-part harmony.
Their repertoire features songs of love, death and lamentation, as well as work songs, shape-note hymns and more recently penned folk songs. Landless have performed in a variety of settings, both in Ireland and abroad, and are closely involved with traditional singing sessions in Dublin and Belfast.
Landless released their debut album Bleaching Bones in March 2018. Recorded by John ‘Spud’ Murphy (Lankum/Katie Kim) of Guerrilla Studios in a series of reverb-heavy historic churches across Ireland (and the occasional underground tunnel), Bleaching Bones is an immaculately performed and deeply moving record. With only the natural room sound as accompaniment, Landless, with the help of producer/engineer/mixer Murphy, have created a timeless folk classic. Landless’ second offering is due for release in 2024.
Choras
Harmony singing trio Choras is Aileen Carr, Janice Reavell and Barbara Dymock. Each is a much loved and respected traditional singer in her own right with many and varied musical collaborations behind her and a vast experience of performing. Whilst car-sharing on a trip to Yorkshire Traditional Song Weekend, pre-Covid, they enjoyed the sing-a-long journey so much, they decided to get together to rehearse. Plans were then thwarted by pandemic restrictions but, nothing daunted, they have Zoomed, FaceTimed and shared recorded material and now specialise in a cappella harmony arrangements of an eclectic mix of songs traditional and modern-ish.
Barbara Dymock
Barbara learned songs as a child from her grandparents, but made her first foray into performing aged 19 with the newly-formed Ceolbeg and a cappella trio Fair Game. After a long silent break to raise a family and pursue a medical career, she returned to sing with Rathlin, Fon a Bhord, Sinsheen and The Barbara Dymock Band and is currently in a duo with Chris Marra. She has 2 solo albums: Hilbert’s Hotel and Leaf an’ Thorn. She collaborated with Christine Kydd on the Sinsheen album LIFT and appeared on Malinky’s 2019 album Handsel.
Janice Reavell
Singer and guitarist Janice was brought up in Aberdeen, and was influenced and taught by local source singers including Jeannie Robertson, Lizzie Higgins and Stanley Robertson. She began singing at Folk Clubs and Festivals in her early teens and travelled and recorded with bands such as Iolair, Lang Johnnie Moore and Highland Connection. She also has an interest in blues music and performed for many years with local blues band: Off the Tracks. She is Scottish Culture & Tradition ballad tutor and choir leader, a Feis Rois harmony tutor and workshop leader, and singing group tutor at the Elphinstone institute.
Aileen Carr
Born in Coupar Angus, and moving to Blairgowrie in the 60’s, Aileen originally started singing with fiddler Meg Murdoch’s concert party. It was an exciting time for folk music and hearing the likes of Belle Stewart at the 1967 Blairgowrie Folk Festival was a defining moment for her musically. and sparked her abiding interest in the great ‘classical’ story ballads, as well as starting the development of her eclectic repertoire. In the 70’s and 80’s she became a regular solo unaccompanied singer at clubs and festivals, joined the bands Ceolbeg and Lang Jonny More, before going on to form the popular a cappella group Palaver with Gordeanna McCulloch, Maureen Jelks and Chris Miles. A well-known and experienced tutor, she was inducted into the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame in 2023. She was also one of the singers who performed at the Edinburgh International Festival’s 1995 celebration of The Greig Duncan Folksong Collection.
Len Graham
County Antrim born, Len Graham has been a full-time professional traditional singer since 1982. After he won the All Ireland Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann traditional singing competition in 1971 his reputation began to spread, and at the same time his own passion for the songs of his native Ulster was growing. From the early 1960s Len sought out and recorded older singers such as Eddie Butcher and Joe Holmes. His musical friendship with Joe Holmes resulted in two albums being recorded – Chaste Muses, Bards and Sages (1975) and - After Dawning (1978).
Len’s first solo album was – Wind and Water (1976) followed by – Do Me Justice (1983) and – Ye
Lovers All (1985). As a founder member of the group Skylark in 1986 he toured extensively for ten
years. Skylark recorded four albums – Skylark (1987), All Of It (1989), Light and Shade (1992) and
Raining Bicycles (1996). In 1993 he released his book and field recording collection – It’s Of My
Rambles… and also that year he recorded an album with Cathal McConnell – For the Sake Of Old
Decency.
Len Graham has performed at numerous Irish and international folk, literary and storytelling
festivals, as well as appearing on many radio and television programmes. In 1992 he received the
Seán O’Boyle Cultural Traditions Award in recognition of his work in Ireland as a song collector
and singer. In 2002, he was honoured as the first recipient of the Irish television TG4 National
Music Award for “Traditional Singer Of the Year.
Scott Gardiner
Scott Gardiner is one of Scotland’s top traditional singers, and has been performing at concerts and festivals across the country since his schooldays. Brought up on a flatland farm in historic Forfarshire, he is best known for singing the bothy ballads and songs of the north-east.
Career highlights include representing Scotland at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in the USA; winning the Bothy Ballad World Championship in Elgin; three nominations for Scots Singer of the Year at the BBC ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards and, along with guitarist Johnny Kemp, becoming the first man to get a Mexican wave going at Dunfermline Folk Club.
He starts off 2024 running the late night song club at Celtic Connections, with concerts in Dublin, Orkney, Angus, Aberdeen, Cornwall, London and Leicester lined up for February and March.
Steve Byrne
Steve Byrne hails from Arbroath in Angus. He is best known for his work with award-winning Scots folksong band Malinky. A graduate of the School of Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh, in his time he has been Traditional Arts Officer for the city of Edinburgh, song cataloguer for the landmark Kist o Riches/Tobar an Dualchais sound archive project, and co-founded the Hamish Henderson Archive Trust to help secure the papers of the acclaimed Scottish poet and folklorist. In 2018 worked as folk singing coach for Netflix's Robert the Bruce epic, "Outlaw King” and in 2019 was voted Scots Singer of the Year in the Scots Trad Music Awards. Since spring of 2023, he has been Director of TRACS (Traditional Arts & Culture Scotland), the national folk arts body bringing together music, dance and storytelling.
Macdara Yeates
Macdara Yeates (‘Dara’ for short) is a traditional folk singer and cultural producer from Ireland.
Born and raised in Dublin, Macdara is one of a crop of singers associated with the recent resurgence of young singing talent in the city along with acts such as Lankum, Landless and Ye Vagabonds. He has toured and performed extensively throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and North America with acclaimed folk band Skipper’s Alley, as well as at such established folk singing festivals as the Cullerlie Traditional Singer’s Weekend, The South Roscommon Singers Festival, Fife Sing, The Frank Harte Festival and more. In 2020, Macdara was named by Trad Ireland as a '20/20 Visionary' with a film and musical tribute to Dublin ballad singer and songwriter Liam Weldon (1933-1995).
An avid cultural producer and curator, Macdara has produced work in association with The Smithfield Fleadh, The Dún Laoghaire Folk Festival, and the St. Patrick's Festival, including Abair an annual international programme examining the relationship between song and speech in the Irish oral traditions. Macdara is also a founding member of The Night Before Larry Got Stretched, a collective of traditional singers running regular events in Dublin with a particular emphasis on the dissemination of traditional song among young people.
In 2021, Macdara was awarded a Music Network residency with the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris.