It’s Ruaille Buaille and Cruinniú na Nóg day in Lucan. Get ready to sing, dance, play and be creative!

Ruaille Buaille, Lucan Children’s Music Festival and Cruinniú South Dublin are delighted to announce details of SongTales: A Musical Extravaganza with Magical Musical Wands.

SongTales, produced by Ceol Connected and presented in partnership with Ruaille Buaille, is a highly participatory music and storytelling performance for children that features a respected musician-line-up including Áine McGeeney (fiddle/vocals), Colm Phelan (percussion), Seán O’Meara (guitar/vocals) and Stephen Markham (keys) & directed by Ceol Connected’s Dr. Thomas Johnston.

SongTales will have two performances as part of this year’s Ruaille Buaille in the Park. Each will comprise a medley of music and songs from Ceol Connected’s repertoire and performed in their amazing mobile Bandwagon. The songs performed will include festival favourites such as ‘Treehouse in the Sky’, ‘All the Things That We Can See’ and ‘Zahrah’s Frolics’. Songs will be circulated to local schools and libraries in advance to ensure maximum audience participation.

As part of SongTales: A Musical Extravaganza with Magical Musical Wands children who come along will work with visual artist Orla Kelly to create their very own ‘magical musical conducting wands’. Using found nature objects and colourful wool, feathers and other objects that will be supplied, children will then use the wands to conduct the SongTales performance. Artist Orla Kelly and composer Thomas Johnston will have visited a number of local schools to facilitate wand-making and singing in advance of the Cruinniú celebrations.

Song Tales @ Ruaille Buaille is funded by the South Dublin Creative Ireland programme for Ruaille Buaille, Lucan’s Children’s Music Festival as part of Creative Ireland’s Cruinniú na nÓg 2023.