Groove Tube with Cian O’Connell

After a four-year hiatus, trad band Beoga returned with a ten-track album earlier this year, and are currently in the midst of a UK and Irish tour that will take them close to Christmas.

The five-piece are best known internationally for famed collaborations with Ed Sheeran on his ÷ LP, namely on huge tracks Galway Girl and Nancy Mulligan – and Beoga are back on the road with Sheeran from January of next year.

Before all that, on Saturday November 15, they play Galway’s Róisín Dubh – but unfortunately for those that haven’t got one, tickets are now sold out. After some lower key performances in smaller venues, these headline shows mark a return for the band to big stages.

“I think it was good for us,” says vocalist and fiddle player Niamh Dunne of Beoga’s break.

“We’ve been on the go a long time. In those four years, everybody got involved in other projects and solo projects. Eamon [Murray] was doing Bird on the Wire, Seán Óg [Graham] was recording and producing a lot of music in Bannview Studios. Myself and Damian [McKee] had solo records.

“Everyone was [embarking on] other creative paths and I think that filled the cup a little bit for everybody when we did come back together. There was a freshness and excitement to get back into it. We always come back together. It’s a funny thing. All the different things that we do; we’re like homing pigeons back into each other’s musical realm.”

In 2022, Dunne released Tides, an eleven-track album brought on by Covid isolation and boredom. In her own words, she “had no aspirations to be making solo records”, but it was a happy accident.

Pictured: Beoga…new album and sold-out Galway gig. Photo: Ruth Medjber.