The Irish Traditional Music Archive (ITMA) & Poetry Ireland are delighted to announce a new series of music and poetry events: “Soul Clap its Hands and Sing”

If ever anyone could be described as having many strings to their bow, then bad pun or none, it’s definitely Dermot McLaughlin. He spends his working hours consulting on strategy and change to the cultural sector, and every other hour living and breathing his beguiling fiddle music. Here he performs alongside his friend and former colleague, the poet Nessa O’Mahony. Shortlisted for the Patrick Kavanagh Prize and the Hennessy Literature Awards, the novelist Joseph O’Connor has described Nessa’s work as “a moving, powerful and richly pleasurable read, audaciously imagined and achieved”.

There’s a well-known maxim that says all art aspires to the condition of music. If true, then poetry surely comes very close to meeting it. Indeed, Irish poets and musicians have always cast a particular spell on each other. “Soul Clap its Hands and Sing”, a new series of music and poetry events presented by Poetry Ireland in partnership with the Irish Traditional Music Archive, will offer audiences a chance to enjoy some of the finest artists in both forms as they weave in and out of each other's work.