Catherine Rhatigan, Treasa Ní Mhiolláin, Eileen Carr

Catherine Rhatigan: Celtic harp, Narration
Treasa Ní Mhiolláin: Sean-nós singing
Eileen Carr: Silver flute

Catherine Rhatigan has been deeply involved in historically informed performance for many years, and has scripted and directed productions for organisations including the Council of Europe, the James Joyce Institute Zurich, the Irish Underwater Archaeology Unit, Spanish Armada Ireland, and commemorative programmes such as Bridget 2025 and Colmcille 1500.

She brings together music, history, and imagination to create engaging and evocative performances. Drawing on her experience as a performer, writer, and teacher, Catherine presents programmes that offer audiences a vivid connection with Ireland’s cultural past. She has led significant artistic initiatives and continues to explore the harp’s poetic and political resonance across time and place.

Eileen Carr is a music graduate of UCC, and in addition to teaching and performing, directs a choral group in Donegal. She has worked extensively on musicals and musical theatre in Donegal and is known for her mentoring skills and for encouraging younger performers and musicians. Widely respected for her dedication to music education and community choirs, Eileen has made a lasting impact on musical life in Donegal.

Catherine Rhatigan and Eileen Carr have performed together for over twenty-five years, appearing in concerts in the United States, France, England, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and South Africa with various ensembles. Both share a strong interest in Ireland’s early music and, over time, have developed an elegant repertoire of Carolan and earlier works, performed on harp and flute.

Treasa Ní Mhiolláin was born on the Aran Islands, where she learned most of her singing from her parents and the rich local tradition. She won the prestigious Oireachtas na Gaeilge competition for sean-nós singing in 1972 and again in 1979, and is today recognised as one of the finest exponents of that style of singing in Ireland.

She has performed all over Ireland and abroad, and was part of the renowned Irish Folk Festival Tour in 1988, performing in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, where she shared the stage with the now legendary groups Clannad and De Dannan.
She spent a year as artist-in-residence at UCG, and toured America with the Taibhdhearc Theatre Company’s production of The Cripple of Inishmaan, where she performed the role of a keener. She is now among the last of a generation of keeners from the Aran Islands, a tradition she learned from her mother.
Treasa Ní Mhiolláin is widely recognised as an outstanding representative of Ireland’s living singing tradition.