20 June: Cara Dillon

About this event

Few voices linger in the soul like Cara Dillon’s. A towering figure in Irish music, she has earned global acclaim and countless awards, including the Meteor Award for Best Irish Female and four BBC Folk Awards. For close to 30 years, she has occupied a singular space in folk music. Her voice—deceptively delicate yet emotionally devastating—evokes something timeless and elemental. Central to her remarkable career is her husband and collaborator, Sam Lakeman, whose role as composer, producer, and performer has been pivotal in shaping Dillon’s sound. Their intimate live shows feature acoustic sets drawn from her extensive discography. Classics like “Black Is the Colour” and “The Parting Glass” appear alongside new material from ‘Coming Home’, her landmark 2024 release, which seamlessly weaves spoken word and song in a profound meditation on identity and emotion. From her early days in Óige and De Dannan, through the major-label corridors of Warners and Rough Trade, her music has travelled far beyond folk’s usual borders and continues to defy boundaries—from chart-topping remixes, Disney soundtracks, to the hit TV series Derry Girls. As Mojo magazine once wrote, Dillon possesses “quite possibly the world’s most beautiful female voice.” With ‘Coming Home’, she affirms that legacy—not simply as a singer, but as a storyteller of rare emotional depth; her voice, as always, lingers long after the last note fades.

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