St. Patrick’s Festival
Rising contemporary folk talent Frankie Archer from Newcastle joins a line-up comprising Dublin/Sligo traditional singer Ruth Clinton (Landless, Poor Creature) and Chickasaw storyteller Amy Bluemel.
TICKETS €11
RUNNING TIME 2 hrs with 5 min turnaround between acts
ABOUT THE COMPANY
Frankie Archer is a British electro-folk musician and singer-songwriter whose bold sound mixes Northumbrian fiddle, voice, manipulated samples, synths and rhythms to reanimate traditional songs with contemporary urgency. Drawing deeply from folk heritage while breaking genre boundaries, her music explores matters of humanity, womanhood and untold stories through ancient melodies re-imagined for today’s audiences.
Winner of the Christian Raphael Prize (Cambridge Folk Festival 2023), Frankie has been featured on Later… With Jools Holland and championed by tastemakers on BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 6 Music. She has supported acts including The Last Dinner Party and The Futureheads, and her live performances are noted for their immersive energy and inventive use of sound. Her releases include the debut EP Never So Red and the critically acclaimed Pressure and Persuasion, both showcasing her fearless reinterpretations of centuries-old ballads alongside her own compositions.
Ruth Clinton is an Irish traditional singer, known as a member of the four-part harmony quartet Landless (Lily Power, Méabh Meir, Ruth Clinton and Sinéad Lynch), who sing unaccompanied traditional songs in close four-part harmony. Landless won Best Folk Group at the 2025 RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards, and their second album Lúireach was named Folk Album of the Year 2024 by The Guardian. As a researcher, Clinton has published This Fearless Maid (1 and 2) — a collection of traditional and folk-idiom songs that challenge patriarchal power dynamics and feature women in active roles. Clinton is also a member of the experimental folk trio Poor Creature (with Cormac MacDiarmada and John Dermody).
Amy Bluemel is an award-winning storyteller, artist, and stomp dancer and a registered member of the Chickasaw Nation. She travels nationally sharing Chickasaw and Southeastern tribal stories, language, history and culture through lively performance, often in her traditional regalia and with interactive programs for audiences of all ages. She is a founding member of the stomp dance troupe Chikashsha Hithla and has appeared at festivals, schools and museums across the United States.
ABAIR is an international programme, exploring the Irish traditions of storytelling, song, and oral history, and tracing their connections around the world.
Curated by traditional singer Macdara Yeates, ABAIR 2026 brings together an international line-up of singers, musicians and storytellers from Ireland, New Zealand, the UK, Japan and the Chickasaw Nation. The programme examines the relationship between the sung and spoken word (the Irish word “abair” translates roughly as both “to say” and “to sing”), with a series of concerts across venues including the National Concert Hall, Smock Alley Theatre, The Button Factory, and the Peacock Theatre.
Now in its 8th year, ABAIR is St. Patrick’s Festival’s flagship traditional arts strand, supported by the Arts Council Traditional Arts Fund.
