NEWS

The Irish Descendants and Navigators are pleased to announce the tour dates for the 3rd annual, 2012, “A Celtic Christmas”, provincial tour. Two of Newfoundland and Labrador’s premier folk band’s are coming together for their province wide tour again this holiday season.

“A Celtic Christmas”, will kick off once again in Carbonear at The Princess Shelia NaGeira Theatre on December 5th, with a show that is sure to awaken the spirit of Christmas!

Check out the all of the dates of the tour for a show near you, a great night of powerful music sure to get you in the mood for Christmas, tickets to a show make wonderful pre-Christmas gifts for friends and family.

Be sure to visit our on-line shop to order copies of “A Celtic Christmas”, a collection of seasonal songs and fan favourites from both the Navigators and the Irish Descendants, along with other great music from The Irish Descendants catalogue, and we will have them shipped to you in time for Christmas.

See you at the show!

Con

Well the winter touring season is going quite well so far! The first leg was a huge success, and we had a wonderful time despite the fact that we drove 9600 kms in 22 days! Thanks to everyone who came out to see the shows! We are rested up a bit, and the clocks have sprung forward as we get ready for a few busy weeks ahead with some fantastic and exciting news!

St Patrick’s Day events take us back to Saskatchewan this year, with shows on the 15th at The Painted Hand Casino in Yorkton SK, and on the 17th in Saskatoon, at The Dakota Dunes Casino. Be sure not to miss thses shows, it’s going to be a great party for sure. it’s a no brainer, Casino shows….and the luck of the Irish to boot!

We head back home then with a few local shows in St John’s, before heading of to Dublin Ohio, on March 30-31, for a very important showcase for the Irish Festival Association of America, where we will get the opportuntity to peform in front of over 90 Irish Festival presenters, which will hopefully help us to reach out to more fans in the United States. The band is delighted to have the chance to perform at this event, please keep your fingers crossed that it yeilds some positive results! After Ohio we have 10 days off in a row, which is quite the luxury for sure. This is not a public performance.

The good news keeps coming, and we are extremely excited to announce a super show at 8pm on April 14th in Moncton NB, at St Benard’s Catholic Church. The Irish Descendants, our good friends Ennis, along with NB, fiddling sensation Dominque Dupuis, are teaming up for a fundraising concert for this historic church while we are in Moncton attending the East Coast Music Awards! It promises to be a great concert and a chance for us to connect with fans and strut our stuff for the industry types who will be in NB, and at the same time fundraise for St Bernard’s. In 1851, Father F.X. LaFrance of Memramcook purchased a lot of land for the construction of the church. However, it took more than 20 years before a first church was constructed and dedicated to St. Bernard. This 129 year old church was the first stone building in the Moncton, and we are delighted to be part of this exciting show!

I will keep you posted on the spring and summer news as it comes in, so keep checking in, there is a ton of shows booked and an update will follow soon!

All the best

Con

We’ve just announced a last minute show for Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Help us spread the word if you have friends or family in the area.

Saturday, February 11th, 8 pm
at the Woodlawn United Church
58 Woodlawn Road, Dartmouth.

Get tickets at the church office or by calling (902) 434-7786.

Happy New Year!

We are refreshed having had a nice Christmas Break, much needed after our grueling Celtic Christmas Tour with the Navigators. Thanks to you all for making the tour a success again this year!

We are pleased to say that the year is starting off with a bang and we are looking forward to a very busy year of touring! The addition of Patrick Moran, of Punters and Eight Track Favorites fame, has been great! Paddy, despite his tender age is a veteran player with striking vocals who has built a great reputation in the Newfoundland Music Scene for himself! Patrick replaces our beloved Duncan Cameron who has taken time away from the band to concentrate on his university studies. We thank him for his great service and good nature; we all wish him well in the future, and look forward to making music with him again!

The rest of the line-up has been a constant for a few years now and consists of Robert Kelly on vocals and bass, along with myself, and Dave Panting (vocal, guitar, banjo bouzouki), which is very powerful indeed! We are working on new material for Rise Again Volume 2, we are hoping to record new tracks in March for a fall, 2012 release.

In the meantime we are please to announce that we will be quite busy with both touring and playing our regular gigs at home. In January 2012, we are close to home with full band shows every Thursday night at O’Rielly’s in St. John’s. It is always a great night, very lively with the show starting at 11:30 running to close! On Sundays, I am at O’Rielly’s, starting at 9:30 – 12:30. These are regular gigs, so keep it in mind and drop down to see the shows!

Here is the full schedule for January and February 2012.

JANUARY (ST. JOHN’S DATES)
12 O’RIELLY’S 11:30
13 BRIDIE MALLOY’S 10:30 (ROBERT, DAVE ,& CON)
14 BRIDIE MALLOY’S 10:30 (ROBERT, DAVE, & CON)
15 O’RIELLY’S (CON) 9:30
19-20-21 O’RIELLY’S 11:30
22 O’RIELLY’S (CON) 9:30
26 O’RIELLY’S 11:30
27 O’RIELLY’S 8:00 -11:00
28 O’RIELLY’S 8:00 -11:00
29 O’RIELLY’S 9:30 – 12:30 (CON)

FEBRUARY

2-3-4 O’RIELLY’S 11:30

5 CALIS HIGH SCHOOL, CALIS MAINE
6 FRANCO AMERICAN HERITAGE CENTRE, LEWISTON MAINE
7 UNITY CENTRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, UNITY MAINE
8 SKYE THEATRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, SOUTH CARTAGE MAINE
10 MARITIME CLUB, CFB GAGETOWN, ORMOCTO, NB
14 THE EAGLE RIVER CASINO, WHIECOURT ALBERTA
15 THE EAGLE RIVER CASINO, WHIECOURT ALBERTA
16 DERRICK’S PLACE, FORT SASATCHEWAN, ALBERTA
17 LIDO THEATRE, FORT ST JOHN, BRITISH COLUMBIA
18 GRANDE CACHE HOTEL, GRANDE CACHE, ALBERTA
19 THE SAWRIDGE INN AND CONFERENCE CENTREFEB
21 THE PHOENIX THEATRE, FORT NELSON, BC
22 THE BELLE PETROLEUM CENTRE, PEACE RIVER, ALBERTA
23 CEILI’S, CALGARY ALBERTA
24 THE RIDGE TAP HOUSE, SLAVE LAKE, ALBERTA
25 THE GREAT NORTHERN CASINO, GRANDE PRAIRIE, ALBERTA

Well the summer is almost here and we are gearing up for a grand season of summer music! We kick off with a Canada Day show in Vancouver on July with an appearance at the Jack Poole Pavillion. Major festival plays include Mt Pearl Days on July 17th, The Food Folk and Fun Festival Twillingate July 28th, Irish Festival Tignish PEI, Giver on the Green,Springdale NF, August 6th. We will as well perform at various communities on our Rise Again Boat Tour from July 19th to 28th, with shows in Trinity, St Brendan’s, Tilting on Fogo Island. Check the tour dates section for more information! St John’s dates on George Street include Bride Malloy’s on June 24-25, O’Rielly’s July 8-9. Be sure to mark these dates on your calender, and get out to see the shows! There are a few copies of our limited edition, Rise Again Vol 1 left, to purchase a copy of this new recording stop by our on-line store and check out the recordings! We will keep you posted on dates that we add in the next few weeks so check bac o for more updates for the summer! September dates in Alberta,Saskatchewan, and Manitoba arer now posted! Lots of touring in the busy weeks ahead! See you down the road!

Con

Well after a very busy winter and spring we are excited for the return of the warm weather. If it ever comes! The band has been touring quite a bit so far, and now have a little break to rest up before we head to Ontario in early June. We have released Volume One of the “Rise Again” limited edition series and are working on Volume Two, which we hope to have out in early July. The new songs are terrific so be sure to get a copy of the CD now before they are all gone.

Tour dates for this summer are just about finalized and will be posted in the next few days on the website. A few notables are Vancouver for July 1st, Tignish PEI on July 30th, along with a ton of festivals at home that we have been invited this year! The Rise Again Tour of the Northeast Coast from Bay Bulls to Fogo by boat in mid-July, is a trip we have been dreaming about for a very long while. Any boaters who are heading north this summer are welcome to join us along the way! It will be the trip of a lifetime for me. The band is looking forward to attending The Great Fogo Island punt races on July 26th. I wonder will they let us enter a team in the race. Robert is from Fogo, he could enter!

I hope you all like the look of the new website. Many thanks to Jud and Mark for the great work they did for us. Duncan will be taking care of the upkeep of the site so it should be more active from here on. Let us know what you think, we would love to hear your feedback.

In the meantime keep checking back here for the summer tour dates and new information as it breaks. I hope we get to see you at a show!

Con

You can now buy Irish Descendants CDs online directly from this website. Click over to our brand new store and start shopping.

You can also find a link to itunes for Irish Descendants music.

A Celtic Christmas is cooking along and we are over the moon by the response so far! We are 2/3 the way through and on the way east on Wednesday to Gander. The shows have all done very well, it is an awesome time for all of us, though we hardly have time to take it all in. Ferryland set the standard selling out the Arts Centre there led the way to sell outs all the way through so far! We hope you get a chance to see the show, there are already plans in place to do it again next year! We are excited to say that we recorded the show in Clarenville for CBC radio’s Music Craft, and are pleased that it will be broadcasted nationally on both CBC One and CBC Two on Christmas Day! There have been some magic moments along the way, like in Newtown when the whole audience sang us out of the hall! Labrador was a flash with 3 shows in 2 days, many thanks to everyone there and along the way who worked so hard to make the tour such a huge success. The new songs and CD are very popular, be sure to get one for your collection, it is a very unique CD from both bands, that reflects in many ways the show we have put on stage. In Burnt Islands we could not get over the little children who danced the night away. The bands have gelled and the boys seem to be having a great time on and off the stage. It is exciting to be hitting the shows with full houses all the way through, and a great treat to visit new places, meet new people, and share our music! I promised a cooked breakfast and lunch for both bands tomorrow, and I HAVE to do laundry as well! I will check in at the end, hope to see you at the show!

Con

In September 2010, two brothers, Con and Arthur O’Brien from Bay Bulls, on the Southern Shore of Newfoundland, came up with a plan to take their bands on the road together for the first time. To celebrate two milestones in their careers, 20 years for The Irish Descendants and 10 years in the case of The Navigators, the bands would come together to do a handful shows for a tour to be called A Celtic Christmas! In a short few days the tour quickly grew into a 17 stop province wide odyssey. The concept was to bring the two bands together in a concert setting, to produce a series of shows that would include not only songs of the Christmas season, but as well, a selection of signature classics from each band, all in one show!

With the tour in place, the bands then embarked on putting together this collection. Quickly joining forces in the studio to record a few Christmas tracks, A Celtic Christmas came to be. A unique package, it is our hope that you enjoy this sample of our music, as much as we enjoyed putting it together!