Amir Abualrob is a Palestinian Theatre Maker, facilitator and performer based in Dublin. In 2017, they finished a four-year program at The Freedom Theatre (TFT) in Palestine, where they studied theatre and cultural resistance. After that, they worked as a facilitator for TFT school. Abualrob is recipient of numerous awards and residencies, including Arts Council of Ireland’s Theatre Project Award (2021); a one-week residence at the Hawk’s Well Theatre Sligo and the Cairde Sligo Arts Festival as part of the Time At The Well (2021); AIC bursary award for Collaborative Arts and Cultural Diversity (2020).
Ayuk is a Cameroonian singer, songwriter, and recording artist. She is a lover of culture, local dialects and languages. Her distinctive sound is a blend of afro soul, acapella, afro-jazz and folklore, with traditional Cameroonian rhythms, creating music that inspires and uplifts. Her official releases are in English, Ejagham and Pidgin English. Ayuk was part of the London African Gospel Choir, the Ngando Jazz band, St. Michael’s Youth and CHORUD. She performed at the O2 Arena, Parliament Square, Akwa Palace, with these choirs & band alongside artists and musicians like Emeli Sande, Sam Fan Thomas, Annie Anzouer, Tata Kingue amongst many others. Ayuk recently performed at the Continental Youth Program (AU 2021). She has recorded and released 3 singles (Obhasi Oka Kam Na Me, Chong Meh Kinah, The Light) and an Extended Play (EP) titled ContriPikin, inspired by real life experiences.
Mbongeuh Angwi Tah is a Southern Cameroonian vocalist who uses her voice to bring comfort, inspiration, and hope – as well as attention to a wide array of issues in, and sometimes beyond, her home continent. She has sung for Ambassadors, Mayors, national political leaders, heads of industry and a varied public, including statesmen. Mbongeuh’s voice and singing style cuts across the African continent – drawing on the joyful notes of her native Southern Cameroons, the classic depth of Africa’s South, the relentless call of the griot tradition, and occasionally the throaty croone of various peoples across Africa.
Ceara Conway is an Irish contemporary singer and visual artist. She creates experiential performance works that utilise traditional and contemporary songs, music and visual art to explore social issues such as the ecological crisis, migration and feminist concerns. She has shown and performed work widely internationally and in Ireland, including the Katzen Arts Centre, Washington, the Barbican, UK, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Taigh Chearsabhaigh Museum, Galway Arts Centre, and the National Gallery of Ireland. Recent projects include CAOIN, album release, GOL with Brú Theatre (2021), Bealtaine Festival ‘Of Scent and Song’’ (2021), Viriditas, Galway ECOC & Saolta Arts (2020), Dóchas/Hope, Oireachtas na Gaeilge & Waterways Ireland (2019). The Feminist Supermarket, Ormston House, (2021), Pocahontas Opera House Residency, West Virginia, USA (2022).
Em’kal Eyongakpa (b. 1981, Mamfe, Manyu) is an artist whose work draws from a range of sources including indigenous knowledge systems, ethnobotany, applied mycology and technology. He is also known for his involvement in self-organised community research spaces, such as KHaL!SHRINE in Yaoundée (2007-2012) and the research platform/ Boh- Bɛtok/ ɛfukuyu. Eyongakpa holds degrees in Plant Biology and Ecology from the University of Yaoundée 1 and was a resident at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. The artist’s work has recently been exhibited at the Jakarta Biennale (2017), the 13th Sharjah Biennial (2017), La Biennale de Montreal (2016), the 32nd Bienal de São Paulo (2016), Bamako Encounters (2011 and 2015) and the 10th Dak’Art Bbiennial (2012).
Singer and Storyteller, Thomas McCarthy was born in the town of Birr, County Offaly, in the Irish midlands into a well-respected Irish Traveller family. His grandfather was known as a “seanachie” which is an Irish term for someone with a profound orally derived knowledge of the history and families of Ireland. Thomas learnt his crafts of singing and storytelling from his mother, aunts and uncles. His extended family has a long history of musicianship and includes the well-recognised and respected Doran Brothers and their grandfather “Big John Cash”, who all played the Irish uillean (elbow) pipes. Thomas has since been employed singing in clubs and at festivals throughout the UK and Ireland as well as in Europe and the US. In addition to this he has proved to be an engaging storyteller for children in the UK and the US, working in schools and at festivals and drawing on old stories and a “fireside” style of storytelling learnt from his family. He has now recorded three CDs: “The Round Top Wagon”, “Herself and Myself” and the third in conjunction with the Cornish Romani Traveller Viv Legg. In reference to the two Travelling traditions, this CD is named “Jauling the Green Tober”. (“Jauling” being a Romani word for walking and “tober” an Irish Traveller word for the road.)
Thomas is also an activist on behalf of his people. This can range from a positive education about his people during performances, talks and storytelling to confronting racism and racist language against Travellers when he comes across it. He has contributed to a number of educative equality and diversity events and conferences, where he has communicated useful information and understanding to professionals wishing to work constructively with the Traveller community.
Róisín Ní Ghallóglaigh is an accomplished solo performer, guitarist and composer. In 2020, she released ‘Red is the Rose’, an album of traditional songs, sung unaccompanied. In 2021 she co-produced an animated music video to accompany her song ‘Bóinn – the River Goddess’. Ní Ghallóglaigh has worked with artists Joanna Hyde and Tadhg Ó Meachaire on their album ‘One For The Foxes’, with turntablists Danny Deepo and Deviant & Naive Ted, and has worked on the Songs For Our Children Project with Aileen Lambert and Michael Fortune. She is a member of Manglam Pi, an electro-trad fusion ensemble.In 2011, Ní Ghallóglaigh was awarded her degree in Irish Music and Dance from the University of Limerick where she specialised in Traditional Irish song under the tutelage of Eilís Ní Shúilleabháin and Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh. As a solo artist, she performs songs from the Irish, English and Scottish tradition alongside her own compositions. She is a tutor and lecturer in Irish song studies, and a PhD research scholar at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance.
James Obijiaku, popularly known as Ijele, is a poet, singer and performer. With vast experience and insight into the cultural display, singing and performance of Southeastern Nigeria – The Igbos, culture and traditions – Obijiaku has performed live for numerous events and radio within Ireland and internationally. Working with the Ndigbo in Ireland, he helps to ensure that Nigerian children, a new generation born and now being raised in Ireland, are firmly in touch with their Igbo roots.
Since childhood John Tunney has been singing the songs that have been passed down in his family since the early 19th century. He studied History at NUI Galway, Mass Communications at Marquette University, Milwaukee, and holds a doctorate in Heritage Studies from GMIT. He lectures in a variety of subjects – including Irish music and song – at The Atlantic Technological University, Galway City. Tunney’s current research interests include the Irish Song Tradition, Memory and Identity, Museology and Exhibition Design, Historical Biography, and the Orange Order. As a performer and composer of traditional songs, he has appeared on a number of recordings including A Bar of A Song, Rogha Órda, and Where The Linnets Sing: Three Generations of the Tunney Family and Sing Us Another Story (2009). In recent years, he has been involved in several song projects co-funded by the National Library of Ireland and the Arts Council: ‘As I Roved Out’ (2013), ‘Man, Woman and Child’ (2014), ‘The Birdsong Project (2015), ‘The 1916 Song Project’ (2016), and ‘Songs for Our Children’ (2020). In 2020, Tunney produced a solo CD entitled The Immigrant: A Stone on the Cairn of Tradition.
Caimin Walsh is a curator and musician from Limerick city. He curates events, exhibitions, festivals and educational programmes. He holds a BA in Fine Art from Limerick School of Art and Design (2013). Walsh is Chairperson of the Board of Directors of Spacecraft Studios, a non-profit contemporary art studio in Limerick city. He was selected for the MAC Curatorial Directions programme in Belfast, New York and Philadelphia (2019). Currently he is working as Projects Curator at Ormston House, a cultural resource centre in Limerick city.
Alan Woods is a singer from Mohill, Co. Leitrim. He has a particular interest in the song and music of his home county and its neighbouring regions. His grandfather, Michael Moran, was recorded by the song collectors and ballad scholars Tom Munnelly and D.K. Wilgus and his great-grandfather, Thomas Moran, was recorded by Séamus Ennis for Radió Éireann (now RTÉ) and the BBC. It is from these recordings that Alan Woods has learned many of his songs. Woods works with the Irish Traditional Music Archive (ITMA), and this includes field recording at traditional music events around the country and presenting lectures on topics related to Irish music. He is also a co-organiser of The Night Before Larry Got Stretched, a singing collective which hosts a monthly singing session in The Cobblestone pub. Woods has been a guest performer at events such as The Hunters Moon Festival, The Iron Mountain Literature Festival and the Inishowen International Folksong and Ballad Seminar.
Samuel Yakura is a Nigerian-born poet and performing artist living in Ireland. From co-curating the Waterford Speakers Corner as part of Summer in the City, Waterford, to winning the #1 Talkatives Slam Competition in Dublin (put together by Boundless and Bare, Slight Motif and WeareGriot), Yakura has been buzzing in the art scene. In 2019, he was among the six poets selected for Poetry Ireland’s Versify 2019 in collaboration with Dublin Fringe Festival. He is passionate about spoken word/performance poetry and strongly believes it is today’s re-evolution from page poetry to engage society’s narratives and the human condition in ways only the Arts have potential to. Yakura is committed to giving his voice to the cause.
Dr Sandra Joyce is Director of the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick. She is also currently Course Director of the MA Irish Music Studies at the Academy. Her research interests include the Irish harp and song traditions, historical ethnomusicology and, most recently, environmental humanities. Together with Helen Lawlor, she is editor of Harp Studies: Perspectives on the Irish Harp (Four Courts Press, 2016), with a second volume focusing on international harp practices to be published shortly. Sandra is also a member of the Irish Humanities Alliance Environmental Humanities Working Group. A traditional singer and bodhrán player, she has performed all over the world, most recently in Boston, Washington DC, Beijing and Shanghai (pre-pandemic!). She also performed in recent live-streamed and pre-recorded events for the Blas Summer School/North Atlantic Fiddle Convention 2021, as well as for the Dock Arts Centre, Carrick-on-Shannon in November 2021.
Natalia Beylis‘ art revolves somewhere between sonic storyteller and multi-instrumental explorer. Her music parallels the lines of her surroundings: bird song, creaking trees, farm animals, the northwesterly breeze and rainfall. Lots of rainfall. Her solo compositions and improvisations are a unique calling of a Ukrainian born, American raised, Irish settled subconscious. Beylis has released 35 albums between solo works and collaborations and has appeared on numerous compilation releases. She is the founding member of Woven Skull and plays in the group BB84. As a curator, Beylis runs the label Sofia Records and puts on festivals and gigs under Hunters Moon. She is a regular contributor to Dublin Digital Radio, exploring the medium of radio as art. Natalia Beylis has released music on Takuroku, Cafe OTO, Chocolate Monk, Nyahh Records, Fort Evil Fruit, Eiderdown Records and Diatribe Records amongst others. Currently artist in residence at the Dock Arts Centre, Leitrim, Beylis is creating a multi-sensory AV dream adventure using sonically infused flower tinctures. At the moment, the artist is seeking out the lost island of Kilstosheen and hopes this quest will provide answers for what the future may hold.
