November 24, 2025
A whole lot of holiday-themed events is coming your way, not surprisingly, but don’t assume they’re all the same – there’s quite a variety of styles and sounds here.
•First, though, a non-holiday-oriented event, courtesy of The Druid Pub’s recently launched series at its Inman Square neighbor The Lilypad: a Dec. 5 concert with Will Woodson and Caitlin Finley. Stalwarts of the Portland, Me.,-and-environs Irish music scene, Woodson (flute, uilleann pipes) and Finley (fiddle) are firmly grounded in the Irish-American brand of traditional music that grew out of the 1920s and ’30s, and have a deep appreciation for the first generation of recorded Irish musicians, including legendary figures like Michael Coleman, James Morrison, and Paddy Killoran. Among their various projects and activities, they recorded the album “The Glory Reel” with accordionist-pianist Chris “Junior” Stevens, evoking music heard in the dance halls, vaudeville theaters, and house sessions of that long-ago era.
Tickets at bandsintown.com/e/107434795
•The Pipes of Christmas, which includes Scottish and Welsh as well as Irish elements of Celtic holiday traditions, is back for its second year in Boston, with performances on Dec. 5 and 6 at the Church of the Covenant, 67 Newbury Street. In addition to Highland bagpipes, the event features smaller ensemble performances that include fiddles, harp, small pipes and piano, and songs and poetry in Gaelic as well as English. Among this year’s performers is local fiddle-cello sibling duo Elizabeth Anderson Howe and Ben Anderson. The concert, hosted by the Learned Kindred of Currie, also helps support the global Scottish community, such as funding scholarships for deserving students and preservation of historical sites.
Tickets, details available at pipesofchristmas.com
•Lexington’s Cary Hall will be the venue for two Irish/Celtic-themed holiday concerts this year. Fiddler and Irish/world music-fusion pioneer Eileen Ivers was in the original musical cast of “Riverdance,” of course, but she’s also had a long-running show of her own, “Joyful Christmas,” which she’ll bring to the hall on Dec. 14. Now in its 22nd year, the show brings together Celtic and Americana Christmas music and traditions – carols, Wren Day songs, storytelling, poems, and the characteristically bodacious and spirited performances by Ivers and her band Universal Roots: Buddy Connolly (accordion, keyboards), Colin Forhan (guitar, banjo, concertina, vocals), Lindsey Horner (upright and electric bass, baritone sax, whistles, harmonicas), Dave Barckow (percussion, guitar, vocals) and Caitlin Maloney (vocals). Ivers, by the way, also deserves notice for one of the best endorsements by a Nobel Prize-winning author – namely Frank McCourt: “Like Whitman she contains multitudes, and cannot be contained by Irish music itself.”
The "Irish Christmas in America" show will be stopping off at Cary Hall in Lexington this month.
Marking its 20th year, “Irish Christmas in America” will be on stage at Cary Hall on Dec. 21. The show has quite the trad credentials: Its producer is Sligo fiddler Oisín Mac Diarmada (of Téada and Lane to the Glen), and this year’s line-up includes Dervish lead singer Cathy Jordan, Gráinne Hambly (Irish harp, concertina), Lane to the Glen’s Samantha Harvey (piano, dance), Jack Warnock (vocals, guitar) and Caoimhín Ó Fearghail (uilleann pipes, whistle). To be sure, there’s plenty of Irish music, song and dance, but a visual element as well: a photographic display that evokes the traditions and spirit of Ireland. (Nota bene: Massachusetts’ own Torrin Ryan will be subbing for Ó Fearghail for a few dates in early December when the show is out west.)
The Cary Hall website is caryhalllexington.com
•Transatlantic traditional Irish powerhouse Lúnasa will be on its customary Christmas tour in the US, with three stops in Eastern Massachusetts: two shows on Dec. 17 at The Burren’s Brian O’Donovan Legacy Series; Dec. 19 at the Groton Hill Music Center; and two shows on Dec. 21 at Rockport’s Shalin Liu Performance Center. The quintet of Kevin Crawford (flute, whistle), Cillian Vallely (uilleann pipes, whistle), Trevor Hutchinson (string bass), Ed Boyd (guitar) and Colin Farrell (fiddle) will be joined by multi-instrumentalist, singer and dancer Dave Curley.
Venue websites are burren.com/music.html, grotonhill.org, and rockportmusic.org
•The Brian O’Donovan Legacy Series at The Burren also will present its Annual Holiday Benefit Variety Show on Dec. 2 in support of The Friday Café, a weekly daytime drop-in program in Harvard Square that offers a welcoming space for homeless and housed adults to gather and get to know each other. The café serves an average of 100 guests a week, offering food and coffee, rest and resources – and community – to people living on the margins.
On Dec. 3, the Legacy Series hosts “An Irish Christmas” with John Doyle and Cathie Ryan (two shows). As anyone who’s seen them can testify, these are two engaging and very accomplished performers: Doyle, co-founder of Solas, is one of the more influential guitarists of his age, a darn good songwriter, too, and last year he teamed up with former Solas mate Mick McAuley on the album “This Christmas Time”; Ryan, lead singer of the original Cherish the Ladies touring ensemble, has five solo albums to her credit, and two PBS Christmas specials – one with Tommy Makem and another in which Doyle also appeared. Doyle and Ryan have collaborated before, and previously toured Europe as a duo. Shouldn’t be too much of an effort to enjoy this.
Burren events information at burren.com/music.html
•Gloucester’s Rocky Neck Art Colony – one of the oldest continuously operating art colonies in the US – will host “Welcome Yule” on Dec. 13. The event features a mix of contemporary and traditional music, songs, and stories with Nathaniel Diamond-Jones (fiddle, mandolin, bouzouki, vocals), Gary Dolinsky (guitar, bouzouki, concertina, vocals), Adrienne Howard (hurdy-gurdy, fiddle), and Rose Sheehan (melodeon, vocals), joined by the Welcome Yule Children’s Chorus.
See rockyneckartcolony.org/event/welcome-yule/
•Club Passim in Harvard Square features two now-annual Celtic-flavored holiday events, the first featuring Scottish Fish on Dec. 19 (two shows). Fiddlers Ava Montesi, Julia Homa, Caroline Dressler, and Maggie MacPhail, and cellist/pianist Giulia Haible have cultivated an energetic and creative approach to presenting Scottish, Cape Breton, and other Celtic music, as well as their own work. Even as they’ve done so with great respect for these traditions, the Fish have often injected a sense of fun into the proceedings – as evidenced by the track “Santa Kills Me” on their EP of holiday music, “Tidings.” In non-holiday-related Fish news, they recently released a new album and will be the Brian O’Donovan Legacy Artist at next month’s Boston Celtic Music Fest (more on all that at a later date).
Irish harpist and singer Áine Minogue makes her annual visit to Passim on Dec. 23 to celebrate the winter solstice and holiday season. The Tipperary native is known for her serene, meditative sound, blending elements of new age and world music with those of Irish and other Celtic traditions, and an abiding interest in the spirituality and mythology found in the ancient Celtic world and its traditions and rituals, including those of Christmas and the New Year.
More about Club Passim events at passim.org/live-music
•A recent holiday tradition at the Irish Cultural Centre of Greater Boston (ICC) in Canton is Chloë Agnew's “Celtic Christmas,” featuring one of the original members of Celtic Woman; this year’s edition will be on Dec. 5. Among the highlights of Agnew’s solo work have been performing at Croke Park’s massive “Stars, Choirs and Carols” Guinness Book of Records concert, collaborating with Emmy award-winning tenor Eamonn McCrystal on his album “And So It Goes,” and appearing on PBS shows “The Power of Music” and the Nathan Carter “Celtic Country Show.” This fall saw her move to Nashville and release a new album, “Bittersweet,” which has more of a contemporary/indie-pop sound.
Also making a return to the ICC for their “An Irish Christmas” show is contemporary Irish folk band Ishna, on Dec. 21. The ensemble is headed up by husband-wife duo Ciaran Nagle and Tara Novak – who both have big-stage experience via their stints with "Riverdance" and The Three Irish Tenors – and includes Dan Meyers (uilleann pipes, whistles), Bjorn Wennas (guitar), David McGrory (accordion, banjo) and Brian O’Neill (bodhran, percussion). Their show comprises familiar Irish and holiday fare, as well as a modern musical perspective, and it’s rumored that dancing may be included.
The Irish Cultural Centre website is at irishculture.org
Massachusetts trio Dashing Rock will present their holiday-themed concert "Dashing Through the Snow" at venues in Greater Boston.
•Nahant-based Dashing Rock is the trio of Betsy Ketudat (fiddle, Hardanger fiddle, nyckelharpa), Sarah MacConduibh (fife, accordion, whistle, flute) and Dave Cabral (guitar, fiddle, Scottish small pipes, vocals), all former members of Celtic ensemble Fellswater, which rang down the curtain this fall after 17 years. The three will present “Dashing Through the Snow,” a concert that brings a glint of Celtic tradition to the music, stories, and lore of the Christmas season, at a number of Greater Boston venues including: The Lynn Museum and Gloucester Meetinghouse (both on Dec. 6), 19 Carter in Berlin (Dec. 7), and Thomas Crane Public Library in Quincy (Dec. 14).
More information at dashingrockceltictrio.com/events
•“Christmas with the Celts,” a popular Celtic-Americana stage production which started out as a TV special first shown on PBS and in other countries more than a decade ago, will be at The Cabot in Beverly on Dec. 14. The Celts are centered around the duo of Ric Blair (vocals, guitar, bodhran, piano), a one-time jazz musician based in Nashville, and Scottish native Laura McGhee (fiddle, vocals), who are joined by Patrick D’Arcy (pipes, whistle, mandolin), Fiachra O’Regan (pipes, tenor banjo) and Matt Menefee (banjo, mandolin, dobro), as well as singers and dancers. The show presents a combination of modern Christmas hits, Irish carols, Irish dance– a Celtic instrumental setting of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” here, a modern Nashville take on “O Holy Night” (with string section) there, a medley of tunes with a bodhran-drum set duet, and a “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” singalong; plus, stories, banter and humor.
Find details at thecabot.org.
•Cape Breton gets its own holiday toast at the Shalin Liu Performance Center on Dec. 13 with Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy’s “Celtic Family Christmas Party.” The spousal couple are fiddlers and step dancers with a keen sense of theatrics and have joined their respective family music dynasties into a new one that features their children, who have become performers in their own right. They’ll all be bringing a Canadian Maritimes flavor to their seasonal celebration. MacMaster, incidentally, became a published author earlier this fall with the release of “I Have a Love Story,” which contains her reflections on family, faith, culture, and music, and includes recipes and photos she’s gathered over the years.
•Perhaps another season tradition starting here: A cappella close-harmony quartet Windborne returns with its “Music of Midwinter” show to City Winery Boston on Dec. 7. Each active from an early age in the New England folk and traditional music community, Lynn Mahoney Rowan, Will Thomas Rowan, Lauren Breunig, and Jeremy Carter-Gordon are as much folklorists as folk singers: conversant in the origins of the songs and the cultures from which these emerged. Windborne – which last year released “To Warm the Winter Hearth,” a book and album of music for midwinter – favors the wassails, songs of the Winter Solstice, old carols, and other music that celebrates the holiday season as a time to connect with community and tradition.
More at citywinery.com/boston
