Late Late Show celebrates trad music with Wallis Bird and Séan Keane

Kenneth Fox

Friday night’s The Late Late Show will kick off the return of the season showcasing the best of our established and emerging musical talents celebrating this year’s TradFest with folk singer songwriter Aoife Scott, musician Wallis Bird, singer songwriter Mike Hanrahan and sean-nós singer Seán Keane.

Joining the Friday night TradFest party will be Mundy, Laois folk artist Molly Donnery, Cavan Gaeilgeoir Sinéad McKenna and Guadeloupean singer songwriter Ines Khai.

Uilleann piper Louise Mulcahy, who made Fleadh history winning four senior all Ireland titles will also be among the guests on Friday night’s show.

Multi-instrumentalist Alan Connor, guest fiddler with The Chieftains Tara Breen, folk singer-storyteller Daoirí Farrell and percussionist Robbie Harris will be in studio; with dancers Ruth Charles of Riverdance and Jordo and the Legs.

Banjo player and former Dubliner Gerry O’Connor will be paying tribute to Dubliner Barney McKenna, while multi-instrumentalist Josephine Marsh and Nigerian Segun Arkano, frontman of The Yankari Afrobeat Collective will also perform.

Also on Friday night, musicians will honour the late Johnny Duhan who passed away in November last year by performing The Voyage.

There will also be some laughter with Dublin-born comedian David Nihill. David had a crippling fear of public speaking and tried standup comedy in an attempt to fight his phobia.

Having overcome his fear, he has gone on to become the biggest selling Irish comedian in America and joins Patrick to share his extraordinary story.

In a week that saw Elon Musk stake a claim on British politics and Donald Trump on Greenland; political podcasters Ivan Yates and Matt Cooper will join Patrick to reveal their predictions for the year ahead in global and Irish politics and how a Trump presidency will affect Ireland.