Lisa O’Neill
Lisa O’Neill brings her singular voice to Belfast International Arts Festival for two intimate performances at The MAC.
Tickets on sale now!
Following her recent sold out ‘Symphony for the Moons’ shows at Dublin’s National Concert Hall with the National Symphony Orchestra and London’s Barbican with the Britten Sinfonia in December and a 4-night residency in January at The Gate Theatre, one of Ireland’s most arresting and original songwriters, Lisa O’Neill will perform two very special shows at the MAC, Belfast, on Wednesday 29 and Thursday 30 October.
Lisa has recently released a single which features vocals from Libertines, Peter Doherty – Homeless In The Thousands (Dublin in the Digital Age) – a song she 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 with 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.
“Giving voice to the disenfranchised is something she does so well, with a particular affinity for women – “Woman is powerful when not restricted”- she says…. And she is emblematic of this, with a free singularity that can fold in difficult subjects, such as homelessness…”. The Irish Times – live Gate Theatre review
Jarvis Cocker has invited Lisa to appear at the Pulp Tramlines Festival in Sheffield this July and she will also be joining The Pogues in the UK as a special guest singer with their Rum, Sodomy & The Lash Tour in May.
Lisa is currently writing new material for her next album.
“The Cavan songwriter has grown in stature in recent years as a valued chronicler of the disenfranchised. Songs of social, political and cultural issues preoccupy her as she proves as adept a storyteller as the playwrights long associated with this room.” The Sunday Business Post – live Gate Theatre review
It’s been a remarkable few years for the 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 Year. 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’.
Photo credit – Jill Furmanovsky
O’Neill is a cultural hero in her own right… a modern artist tapped into the ancient.
Uncompromising, stunning, soul-shaking stuff.
You’ll be lucky to hear a better record all year [All of This is Chance]