By Earle Hitchner
The destruction of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan on Sept. 11 left a number of water pipes broken, including those leading to the basement of the Blarney Star, where Friday night concerts of Irish traditional music have been held since 1994. While the water-damaged Blarney Star was being fixed this past autumn, its concert series shifted to the Irish Arts Center in midtown Manhattan.
Now repaired and renovated, the basement of the Blarney Star will again host live Irish traditional music on Friday evenings. Kicking off the series’ downtown return will be a gala all-star concert on Jan. 11 that will include uilleann piper Jerry O’Sullivan, fiddler Brian Conway, button accordionists Patty Furlong and James Keane, flutist Dermot Grogan, and guitarist/singer John Dillon.
The Blarney Star is at 43 Murray St., two blocks below Chambers Street, between Church Street and West Broadway. Sets begin at 9 and 10:30 p.m. Call (212) 732-2873 or visit www.blarneystar.com.
A personal note, the producer of the Blarney Star’s Friday night concert series is Don Meade, who was also a freelance columnist on Irish traditional music for the Irish Voice. His last column appeared in that newspaper on Jan. 2, ending a full decade of writing for it. The contributions he made there to the rising profile of Irish traditional music will endure, and his coverage and critiques, rooted in enthusiasm and resistant to cant, will be missed.
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