Boston Irish Calendar of Irish/Celtic Events

June 2025

On Wednesay (June 11), The Burren will present The East Coasters on Wednesay (June 11), an Irish-Scottish music trio that is the very definition of a “geographically diverse” band. For starters, there is Greater Boston’s own Calum Bell (fiddle, flute), who began performing as an elementary schooler with his family and is among the more ubiquitous local session musicians. Madeline Dierauf (fiddle, vocals), a recent Rhodes Scholar who grew up in the Asheville, NC, area and was initially interested in the Appalachian tradition, took the plunge into Irish music while in the Atlanta area. Guitarist Richard Osban – assistant director of the Baltimore Trad Fest and executive director of the Baltimore Irish Music School – became interested in Irish and Scottish music while living in Europe. The three have a tight, engaging sound and despite their distance from one another have managed to keep a pretty regular performance schedule; they also released their debut album last fall. 

Irish singer-songwriter Mundy will play at the Legacy Series on June 24 – he’ll also be at the Irish Cultural Centre of Greater Boston in Canton  on June 22. The County Offaly native, whose sound ranges across rock, Americana, folk, and indie, made quite an impact with his cover of Steve Earle’s “Galway Girl” (including a live recording with accordionist Sharon Shannon), but there is quite more to his portfolio – for example, his quiet, observational “July” or upbeat, cautiously optimistic “Mexico.” Mundy first surfaced in the early 1990s with songs like “Gin and Tonic Sky” and especially the rocking, electronica-fueled “To You I Bestow,” which appeared on the soundtrack for the 1996 film “Romeo + Juliet” (you know, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Clare Danes). He has released eight albums, opened for folks like Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, the Pogues, and the Waterboys, and even performed at the White House for Barack Obama. 

Ticket information and other details on Brian O’Donovan Legacy Series events available through The Burren website at burren.com/music.html

•In addition to the Mundy concert on June 22, the Irish Cultural Centre will also be the venue for a performance on June 13 by Donegal-based vocal quartet Onóir, which originally had been scheduled to appear in March. Tom McHugh, Declan Gaughan, Deane Connaghan, and Diarmaid McGee began playing together during the pandemic, and subsequently gained a following through a series of videos of “The Auld Triangle,” “The Parting Glass,” and “Only Our Rivers Run Free.” These and other popular traditional and contemporary Irish songs – such as “The Town I Loved So Well,” “Black Is the Colour” and “When You Were Sweet Sixteen” – are on their first album, released last year prior to their inaugural US tour. 

•Club Passim in Harvard Square welcomes back Seán Dagher, a Montreal resident with wide-ranging musical interests – from maritime to Irish to French-Canadian – on June 26. Dagher’s “Shanty of the Week” YouTube series, with seafaring favorites like “Leave Her Johnny” and “Roll and Go,” has more than 27,000 subscribers, and his renditions have been used in the “Assassin’s Creed” video game series, including “Dark Flag.” The co-artistic director of La Nef, a French-Canadian early music performance group, he has composed and arranged various scores, some of which are used in films and videos. Dagher also plays as part of the bands The Swindlers and Skye Consort & Emma Björling.

Go to passim.org for tickets and information

•A fine exponent of the “balfolk” genre, Triton, gave a concert at the First Congregational Church in Winchester on June 6. The term originated in the 1970s as a way to distinguish traditional French folk dances from other social dances, has since expanded to encompass social folk dances and tunes – mainly but not exclusively French, and often with contemporary origins – from across Europe and sometimes beyond. The trio of Jeremiah McLane (accordion, piano),Timothy Cummings (pipes, whistles) and Alex Kehler (nyckelharpa, violin, låtmandola) have a repertoire that encompasses Scottish reels and hornpipes, Breton bourées and gavottes, Swedish polskas, and the odd New England waltz, among other things — haunting, fiery, and sublime sounds drawn from northwestern Europe traditions as well as contemporary sources, including their own pens. They released their debut album, “Rule of Three,” in 2023.

For more, go to fcc-winchester.com/latest-news/ripley-presents-triton

•Boston-area duo Mrs. Wilberforce returns to the Gore Place Carriage House in Waltham on June 18. Kyra Davies (fiddle, viola, vocals) and Sean Smith (guitar, bouzouki, tenor banjo, vocals) play music from Ireland, Scotland, and Cape Breton but also farther afield, including Shetland, Brittany, and Galicia. Although their sound is rooted in tradition, they readily draw upon classical and contemporary folk/folk-rock domains, bringing out the distinctive qualities of each tune or song for the enjoyment of their audiences. Mrs. Wilberforce’s appearances have included the City Winery Boston, this past January’s Boston Celtic Music Fest, and the Newton and Belmont PorchFests. 

See goreplace.org/whats-on/concert-mrs-wilberforce