The Viking Ship Museum invites you to an evening with Irish stars

Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, Billy Mag Fhloinn, Benny Mc Carthy og Dónal Clancy

Members of two of Ireland’s best bands, Danú and Altan, will visit the Viking Ship Museum and the Chieftain in august. It will be an evening with traditional and original music from the heart of Ireland.

The museum has gathered members from two of Ireland’s super groups, with Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh (Altan) and Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh (Danú) on vocals, violin and flute, and Benny Mc Carthy and Dónal Clancy from Danú on the accordion and guitar. With percussionist and bouzouki-player Billy Mag Fhloinn, we can definitely look forward to an evening with the best Ireland has to offer. Enjoy lively Kerry slides, wild Donegal violin, and driving jigs and reels. You will hear enchanting vocals from Muireann and Mairéad, when they sing Irish songs in both Gaelic and English. This will be an evening not to be missed!

The occasion is the Chieftain who has returned home from a successful voyage and so he is inviting everyone to an enormous feast. There will be musicians, dancers, minstrels and market people from the whole area and from abroad. There will be feasting for several days, plenty of mead, smoked salmon, spit-roasted lamb and other delicacies.

Prize-winning musicians

Danes with an interest in Irish traditional music will recognise the names Danú and Altan. Both bands have visited Denmark before and not many Irish traditional bands have made such an impact with the public and with music lovers around the world as Danú and Altan.

Muireann Nic Amhlaoibhr has won many prizes, both as a singer and with Danú. Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh is known as one of the most productive singers in Ireland.

The Irish connection.

The Vikings had many connections to the emerald isle and the Viking Ship Museum’s longship, the Sea Stallion from Glendalough, is a striking example of this connection.  The ship is a reconstruction of the Skuldelev 2 wreck, which was built in the area around Dublin in 1042.

In 2007, the Sea Stallion sailed from Roskilde to Dublin on a long and dramatic voyage north around Scotland. In Ireland, the ship and its crew received a welcome worthy of a chieftain, with 100,000 people lining the banks of the river Liffey in Dublin. In 2008, the ship returned via the south of England and across the North Sea. The ship finally arrived back in the museum harbour on 9 August 2008 and was again received by thousands of people.

» Meet the Irish musicians...