Commemorating the Rising at Celtic Connections Festival

Each year Glasgow’s Celtic Connections festival celebrates Celtic music and its connections to cultures across the globe. In 2016, the programme will include a number of events to mark the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising. With support from Culture Ireland, the Chieftains will host an evening of Irish music with a number of special guests including former Dubliners fiddler John Sheahan and top contemporary balladeer Declan O’Rourke, who’ve recently won huge acclaim with Damien Dempsey as The New Triangle. Further information is available on their website.

The Celtic Connections of 1916 will also be explored in a new book called Scotland and the Easter Rising, which will be launched during this year’s festival.

Edited by Kirsty Lusk and Willy Maley, the book brings together writers, journalists and academics to reflect on the part played by Scotland in 2916 and its legacies.

The Easter Rising is a defining moment in Irish history, laying the foundations of the nation. But 1916 also matters for Scotland, for the Irish in Scotland, and for Irish-Scottish relations. Edinburgh-born James Connolly was one of the leaders of the Rising, and a signatory to the Proclamation of the Irish Republic on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916.

The launch event will take place on 15 January 2016 in Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall.

Further information is available at on the Celtic Connections website.