After an eight-year hiatus, groundbreaking Irish-American band Solas is headed back out on the road again, with a major American tour that includes a couple of stops near Boston and the release of a limited-edition live album.

Original members Seamus Egan (flute, low whistle, mandolin, banjo, nylon-string guitar), Winifred Horan (fiddle) and John Williams (accordion) will be joined by new recruits Nuala Kennedy (flute, whistle) and Alan Murray (guitar, bouzouki); vocalist Moira Smiley, who was part of the band in the mid-2010s, also will appear on selected dates.

                                  Moira Smiley also will appear during the Solas tour.

Solas will perform at the River Club Music Hall in Scituate on Feb. 25 and at Groton Hill Music Center on March 1.

Solas’s debut in the mid-1990s heralded the arrival of a new generation of performers in the Irish/Celtic music revival that had taken root three decades before, as well as an increasing interest in exploring commonalities across musical genres. Irish music aficionados and casual listeners were struck by the group’s power and drive, its ambitious, forward-thinking arrangements, as well as an increasingly diverse repertoire that included elements of American folk, contemporary singer-songwriters, along with their own compositions – and most of all, the sheer excellence of its members: the melodic heft of Horan, Egan and Williams; the enchanting, expressive voice of Karan Casey; the pulsating guitar presence of John Doyle. 

Over time, the roster changed, but the band’s high-level ability and vision quality remained steadfast, thanks to musicians such as Donal Clancy, Mick McAuley, Eamon McElholm and Johnny B. Connolly and vocalists Deirdre Scanlan, Mairead Phelan, Niamh Varian-Barry and Noriana Kennedy, as well as Smiley.  

There’s some symmetry at work here: Solas had announced its break shortly after marking its 20th-anniversary year – “It is time to hit the reset button and rest, write, teach, be with family and loved ones, and just breathe,” the band announced on its Facebook page in early 2017, prior to what would be its last tour. “This isn’t goodbye forever, necessarily, but it is goodbye for a while” – and now its reemergence comes on the occasion of the band’s 30th. 

But no, says Egan, that hadn’t been the plan all along.

“When we decided that it was time for a break, a ‘reset,’ we didn’t discuss it as permanent or temporary; we left it completely undefined. There wasn’t any animosity or hard feelings. We’d reached a very significant milestone as a band, and the time just seemed right to pull back.

“I was happy to leave things undefined. I held to the idea that one day, whenever it might be, we would perhaps be ready to think about playing together again.”

For Egan, the impetus came on gradually, when the band’s former soundman began sending along recordings from the band’s live shows over the years. Egan had never made a habit of listening to past work, but as he gradually went through the audio files, he started feeling that the time might be ripe to get Solas up and running again.

“It seemed to me that these tracks – some from back in 2004, others more recent – captured some special moments of the band’s career,” he says. “When you’re on the road all the time, moving from one album to the next, or one project to the next, you don’t have the time to really reflect on what you’ve done. We’re different people now, with different interests than when we first put this music together. So, the idea here is to go back to the beginning, focus on stuff we haven’t played in years, maybe even forgotten about – but which feels to us like new.”

A sampling of those tracks comprise the band’s first live album, which will be available only at concerts during the upcoming tour.

Egan says it’s best not to think of this as a “reunion tour”: Rather than trying to get as many former Solas members involved (“We didn’t sound out everyone”), he explains, the focus “was more about seeing what would work.” Having three band co-founders involved, along with Smiley, was a positive outcome, as was bringing in two musicians for whom they have great respect: Kennedy’s innovative interpretations of Irish and Scottish music, along with her own fine work, have been spotlighted on her three acclaimed solo albums and in her various collaborations (one of which is the trio The Alt, which includes John Doyle); Murray, who lived in Boston for a few years, has been much in demand as an accompanist – including with performers such as John Carty, Eileen Ivers, Colin Farrell and Niall and Cillian Vallely – and is an accomplished singer as well.

Reflecting on the early years of Solas, Egan says that he and the other members had no agenda nor clearly defined aspiration for what they wanted to accomplish artistically or otherwise. “Well, we were all in our 20s, we didn’t know anything; we were blessed with a profound amount of ignorance,” he quips. “Our approach didn’t have a great deal of thought – ‘Oh, we should have this or that kind of sound’ – and all that happened was what was going on in the room at that time. 

“We knew what it felt like to play and to try out new ideas, and what it felt like when it worked. But there was no sense as to what that meant. We didn’t even have a name at first. The reaction was so positive early on, and then we put out that first album [in 1996], but we had no plan past the album. 

“At one time, we were all more or less based in New York, and there was such a vibrant scene there – not just for Irish music – so I think we drew a lot of inspiration from what was going on there. But for us, the big thing was we had to feel a real connection to the material, whether within the tradition or not. Whatever choices we made had to come from a place where we connected.”

It’s an inevitable question, and Egan has undoubtedly heard it a lot already: Will this tour be a one-off, or will Solas stay together for a longer run?

“I think the best answer is ‘never say never,’” he says. “For now, we’re just really looking forward to this year, and this tour specifically. We haven’t been on the road like this for some time, and things are going to be quite busy. We’ll see what we’ll see.”

For updates on Solas, see solastheband.com