Lisa O’Neill – announces two date residency at DeBarras, Clonakilty Samhain Festival 2025

Acclaimed Irish songwriter Lisa O’Neill will bring her band to West Cork this November for an intimate two-date residency at DeBarras Folk Club, Clonakilty, as part of the Samhain Festival 2025.

Following a remarkable run of sold-out performances, including Symphony for the Moons with the National Symphony Orchestra at Dublin’s National Concert Hall and London’s Barbican with the Britten Sinfonia, Lisa O’Neill continues to cement her place as one of Ireland’s most vital voices. Her recent four-night residency at Dublin’s Gate Theatre further underscored her status as a fearless storyteller and singular live performer.

Having recently released a single which features vocals from Libertines, Peter Doherty – ‘Homeless in The Thousands (Dublin in the Digital Age)’ – a song Lisa felt compelled to write in response to the growing issue of homelessness in Dublin.  This is not the first time O’Neill has written about social injustices on the cusp of a change.  Songs like Rock the Machine about unemployment in the Dublin dock lands, When Cash Was King about the move to a cashless society and Violet Gibson about the Irish woman who attempted to assassinate Mussolini in 1926.

It’s been a remarkable few years for Cavan songwriter. Her acclaimed last album All of This Is Chance ranked highly on many critics 2023’s Albums of The Year Lists. Amongst the wealth of praise, Gideon Coe at BBC 6 Music picked it as his Album of The Year. It was No. 3 in Mojo Magazine’s Folk Albums of The Year and Bob Boilen at NPR deemed it his No.3 Album of The Year.  It also featured in Songlines’, Uncut Magazine’s and The Quietus’s Albums of the years.  May 2023 also saw Lisa make a memorable appearance on Later with Jools Holland.

A raconteur in the truest sense of the word, O’Neill is a five-time BBC Folk Award nominee, and her album Heard a Long Gone Song was named The Guardian’s 2019 Folk Album of the Year.  She had 2 songs feature in Peaky Blinders – Blackbird, her own composition, and an adaptation of Bob Dylan’s All the Tired Horses soundtracked the final scene of the epic TV drama. Her song ‘Old Note’ was used in the drama series ‘Say Nothing’.

In addition to her DeBarras residency, O’Neill is set to appear at Pulp’s Tramlines Festival in Sheffield at the invitation of Jarvis Cocker and will join The Pogues as a special guest vocalist on their Rum, Sodomy & The Lash UK tour in May.

Don’t miss this rare chance to experience one of Ireland’s most distinctive voices in the intimate setting of DeBarras Folk Club. Tickets €36.50 go on sale Monday 12th May:

Fri 7 Nov @ 8:00 pm – 11:30 pm | €36.50 https://debarra.ie/event/samhain-lisa-o-neill/

Sat 8 Nov @ 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm | €36.50 https://debarra.ie/event/samhain-lisa-o-neill-matinee-performance/

PHOTO BY JILL FURMANOVSKY