R� - R�

R� - R�

Musicians:
Liam � Maonla� - singer, piano and bodhr�n
Peter O Toole - singer, bouzouki and guitar
Eithne N� Chath�in - singer and fiddle
Cormac Begley - bass, baritone, treble and piccolo concertinas
Maitiu � Casaide - whistle and uilleann pipes

R� is a traditional Irish music group that has toured the world over the past three years. R�, an Irish word, means 'era' or 'moon' and is pronounced 'ray'.

Michael Keegan-Dolan and I dreamt of a piece of theatre that would honour our cultural heritage. In that dreaming, we aligned our creative impulses with those of Se�n � Riada's. Eight contemporary dancers (Ino, Saju, Anna, Louise T, Saku, Louise M, Mani and Keir) and four musicians (Cormac, Maiti�, Eithne and Martin) joined us. We sat in a room together looking at what we had and it looked good. We got into hours and hours of playing and dancing. We made a show, Rian, and it ran in Dublin and in London, first with Martin. After, Peter came and brought his otherworldly sensitivity to the group. We took it to New York, Sydney, Rome, Lyon, Paris, Hong Kong, Singapore and New Zealand. In Wellington, the band talked about the idea of making a record. Five stories find their way into a disc - a set of songs and tunes gathered from our collective memory. Cormac, Maiti� and Eithne are scholars. They never stop tempering their craft; learning and sharing new and old tunes and songs. We took ourselves to St. Nicholas� Collegiate Church and invested our energy and stories into the recording you are hearing. In this life there is pain; our brothers and sisters are living through unimaginable pain. We share that pain. Our music came also, from great pain and confusion. We would like to dedicate this record to those people who are crying out for our help and compassion. Ceol agus gaol. - Liam � Maonlai

Recorded live in concert in Galway. These recordings are free from studio manipulation; what you hear is what happened on that night.