Academy Classes
The 6th annual Dublin Irish Festival Academy is returning this summer as a warm-up to the Festival. A variety of classes will be offered that highlight Irish music and culture.
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NEW date and time! Academy classes will be held on Friday, August 6 from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. with an hour break for lunch.
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NEW location! Classes will be held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Dublin
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All students must be 12 years of age or older to participate in Academy classes
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Classes range from $50-$60 per person, and include a Friday Festival admission ticket
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Class space is limited; students will be notified if class is full
Beginning Bodhran - CLASS FULL
Instructor: Michael Vignoles
Class fee: $50
Class limit: 12
Have you ever wondered how to play the bodhran? Michael Vignoles from Galway, Ireland teaches this traditional heartbeat of all Irish music. Michael is also known internationally as an instrument maker. For more than 20 years, he has made bodhrans and uilleann pipes from his Galway City shop. Bodhrans will be provided for this class.
Irish Language
Instructor: Raghn Crow
Class fee: $50
Class limit: 12
Irish, one of the Gaelic languages, is experiencing a renaissance both in the United States and in Ireland. This is your chance to learn some of the basics including complex pronunciation and traditional sayings. Raghn Crow is the founding president of the Gaelic League of Central Ohio and is well-known in the United States and Ireland as an author and teacher of the Irish language. Although Raghn calls Irish “an ancient language in a modern time,” he insists that once students know the “code,” they can apply those rules to the language and progress quickly in their proficiency.
Genealogy & Family History - Canceled
Instructor: Michael O’Laughlin
Class fee: $50
Class limit: 12
Irish Genealogy, DNA test kit (optional on site), reference library on hand,
Record your own Irish Family Podcast on site. Learn Irish names and origins; find out more about Celt-Viking-Norman-Scots- Basque bloodlines in Ireland.
Sing a Sean Nós Song chorus to cap things off! (Small primer and bit of turf to all whocomplete this course.)
Peace & the Artists, a Songwriters Journey - Canceled
Instructor: Tommy Sands
Class fee: $50
Class limit: 30
Tommy Sands, County Down's singer, songwriter and social activist, has achieved something akin to legendary status in his own lifetime. From the pioneering tours with the highly influential Sands Family, playing Carnegie Hall to Moscow's Olympic Stadium, he has become one of Ireland's most powerful songwriters and enchanting performers. He enjoys celebrity status in many parts of the world, tempered by artistic integrity and the sorrow of personal tragedy in his war torn homeland.
Irish Tenor Banjo
Instructor: Seamus Egan, Solas
Class fee $60
Class limit: 12
Born in Hatboro, PA, and raised for a time in Foxford, Mayo, Seamus has released three acclaimed solo albums for Shanachie; 1985s “Traditional Music of Ireland,” 1990s “A Week in January” and 1996s “When Juniper Sleeps.”
He also performed on a soundtrack tied to the 1995 Oscar winning movie “Dead Man Walking” and more recently wrote a “crisply pulsative score,” said Billboard, for the Irish stage show “Dancing on Dangerous Ground."
Advanced Irish Fiddle
Instructor: Winnie Horan, Solas
Class fee: $60
Class limit: 12
Winnie began fiddle and Irish dance lessons in the then bustling Irish scene in New York in the 1970s. Throughout these years she participated and competed in many fleadhs and competitions in the US and Ireland, winning the US National Dance Championships a record nine years in a row. At this time, she was also pursuing a path in classical music and ultimately won a scholarship to attend Mannes College of Music in Manhattan, as a teenager, for violin. She then went on to earn a degree in Music from the prestigious New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. This combination of both classical and traditional backgrounds helps to define the style that is so identifiable and associated with Winifred’s playing. In demand as a dancer, fiddle player and studio musician, she has worked with many of the finest musicians on the Irish Music scene.
Uillean Pipes
Instructor: Cillian Vallely, Lunasa
Class fee: $60
Class limit: 12
Starting at age seven, Cillian Vallely learned the whistle and uilleann pipes from his parents Brian and Eithne at the Armagh Pipers Club, a group that for over four decades has fostered the revival of traditional music in the north of Ireland. Since 1999, he has been a member of the band Lúnasa, with whom he has recorded six albums and played at many major festivals. He has also performed and toured with “Riverdance”, Natalie Merchant, Tim O Brien and Mary Chapin-Carpenter in “The Crossing,” New York-based “Whirligig” and the “Celtic Jazz Collective” with Lewis Nash and Peter Washington. He has recorded on over 40 albums. Cillian has recently recorded on two movie soundtracks, “Irish Jam,” and “The Golden Boys” and played uilleann pipes on the BBCs “Flight of the Earls” soundtrack.
Advanced Flute - CLASS FULL
Instructor: Kevin Crawford, Lunasa
Class fee: $60
Class limit: 12
“If it’s music you want," Christy Moore sang, "then go to Clare." In 1989, flute, tin whistle, low whistle and bodhrán player Kevin Crawford heeded those words. He left his hometown in England, for rural West Clare. In 1993 and 1998, Kevin joined, respectively, two of Ireland’s most celebrated instrumental bands, Moving Cloud and Lúnasa. These groups have brought him the wider international recognition he richly deserves. He is well-known throughout the world for his flute playing and we are pleased to have him in Dublin to teach.
