A Different View with Dave O’Connell

Everyone’s home, they say, should be their castle, but for most of us the bar rises no higher than their own heavily mortgaged spot in a row of terraced houses – with the chance that once in a blue moon you might get to experience castle life at someone else’s gaff.

Like Claregalway Castle, a magnificently restored edifice on the outskirts of the village, which looks majestic from the road as you spend half an hour stuck in traffic – but then opens out like a magical parallel universe if you’re fortunate enough to make it inside.

Better still if the reason you’re in there is to listen to the music of one of Ireland’s finest singer/songwriters, aided and abetted by an American singer you may not have known beforehand but who you’ll soon never forget.

Such a night occurred last week when Mick Flannery was joined by New York-based EW Harris for what qualified as an intimate gig by any circumstances, the second of three nights at the Castle under the Meet Me at Sundown banner.

Three weekday nights, three unique pairings sharing a stage, in front of an audience of around 100 very happy people safely ensconced from the wind and rain in the historic old building restored so lovingly by Éamonn O’Donoghue and his family.

As soon as you enter the grounds, you’re tumbling back in time – walking across a courtyard lit by burning braziers to steer you into a candlelit room that was wonderfully atmospheric even before EW took to the stage.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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