SafeTRAD Team

John Doyle. From a musical family in Dublin, John’s influences include well known Irish, English and Scottish folk singers inlcuding his father, Sean Doyle – probably the biggest influence of all. John first went on the road at the age of 16 with the group Chanting House which he formed with Susan McKeown and which eventually included such great players as Seamus Egan, Eileen Ivers, & Donogh Hennessy.  John went on to form the highly acclaimed super group, Solas, with Seamus Egan, John Williams, Karan Casey and Winifred Horan which took the folk and Celtic music worlds by storm, in no small part due to John’s powerhouse rhythmic guitar style and innovative arrangements. As part of Solas he received three NAIRD awards and a Grammy nomination for the band’s self-titled first recording. After leaving Solas, John has gone on to perform and tour with other greats in the Folk, Celtic and Bluegrass worlds – as music director for folk icon Joan Baez, guitarist for Mary Chapin Carpenter, Liz Carroll, Eileen Ivers, Tim O’Brien, Linda Thompson, Kate Rusby, Cathie Ryan, Cherish the Ladies, and many others. A left-handed player, his style involves the use of bass string damping with the heel of the left hand combined with a constant, metronome-like strumming pattern and nimble movement up and down the neck with the right hand to incorporate bass lines and chordal variations. Combined with other dynamic techniques such as string choking with the right hand, the resulting sound is full and highly rhythmical. Doyle plays guitar in many different tunings, but is perhaps best known for using the ‘Dropped D’ tuning (DADGBE) for backing up other musicians. In recent years, John has focused primarily on writing songs based on the varied experiences of Irish emmigrants.

Gay Mc Keon. Piper and CEO of Na Píobaírí Uilleann, Dublin. He comes from a Dublin family noted for their involvement in Irish music – his father Tom was one of the activists who kept the Dublin Pipers Club running in the mid years of the last century. He is surrounded by piping; his brother Tomás and his two sons Conor and Sean also play. Along with his sons Gay has made two CDs, Irish Piping Tradition (1997 – CDGMK001) and The Dusty Miller (2005 – CDGMCK002). He was on the Board of Na Píobairí Uilleann from 1987, when he became Secretary. He subsequently served for five years as Treasurer and was the Chairman from 2002 until 2006 when he took on the job of CEO

Janet Harbison. Born in Dublin in 1955, Harbison came to early prominence with the piano and the Irish harp. By 1981, she had won every national harp competition and a number of international prizes including the Isle of Man Millennium Competition and Festival International de l’Harpe Celtique (Awen Trophy).She had studied music at Trinity College Dublin, the Dublin College of Music and Cork University, with performance on a range of instruments, composition and conducting. In 1984, Harbison moved to Belfast, Northern Ireland to pursue doctoral research and was awarded a two-year Research Fellowship at the Institute of Irish Studies at Queen’s University. She was also awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Ulster, a Flax Trust award for her work with Irish music and Education toward Mutual Understanding (Peace and Reconciliation) in Northern Ireland, and a number of other awards for her work with the Belfast Harp Orchestra. In 1983, Harbison established Clairseoiri na hEireann (the Harpers’ Association) to support traditional harping and oral teaching. The association organised monthly harp sessions in Dublin (at the Piper’s Club, Henrietta Street), managed harp festivals and summer schools and established weekly or biweekly harp schools. From 1986 to 1994, Harbison held the position of Curator of Music at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, where she organised an annual calendar of events, festivals and conferences. She made arrangements for the bicentenary of the Belfast Harpers‘ Assembly in 1992, including: the World Harp Festival, Belfast (a 12-day festival in May featuring over 40 international artists in Belfast concert venues); the Belfast Harpers’ Bicentenary Festival (10 days in July comprising an international harp competition, an archiving project and summer school); and a 6-month exhibition at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum featuring artefacts dating from the original event in 1792. From 1994, Harbison took up the position of CEO with the Harp Foundation until the organisation and its activities moved to Castleconnell, County Limerick in 2002. In 2002, Harbison established the Irish Harp Centre in Castleconnell, County Limerick, a residential harp school and college. In 2006, she published her oral Irish Harp Method. Her teaching has been at the forefront of the Irish harp revival with many of Ireland’s most prominent performers emerging from her school (including Michael Rooney, Gráinne Hamblyand Laoise Kelly).[4] With her teacher and examiner training courses, her method is now in use throughout the harping world and her technique training (the “Chimes”) is in universal use. Currently Janet Harbison is Visiting Professor of (Irish) Music at Ulster University, Derry, N.Ireland (2016-20–).

Liz Carroll is an Irish fiddler, composer, and recording artist. She is the first Irish-American musician to be nominated for a Grammy, and the first American-born composer honored with the Cumadóir TG4, Ireland’s most significant traditional music prize. Liz has toured as a solo artist and with the Greenfields of America, Trian, as the duo Liz Carroll & John Doyle, String Sisters, and now as a duo with guitarist and pianist Jake Charron. She is featured on fourteen albums and has appeared on many more, and her duet album with Jake Charron, Half Day Road, just released in February, 2019. Liz was born in Chicago of Irish parents, and still lives just outside her hometown.

Dr Justin Magee is the Research Director for the Belfast School of Art and a Senior Lecturer in Product design at Ulster University. His research focuses on digital human modelling, user experience and immersion for physical and digital product applications, in Arts and Health.  As a design consultant he has worked for LEGO Systems, Denmark, GE Plastics (Germany and UK) on contracts with Mercedes, Audi, Porsche etc., Smart Car and as a design consultant on over 75 commercial projects with SME’s in Ireland and the UK.  His recent research received the Innovate UK Certificate of Excellence (2017), featured as a case study for the NCUB State of the Art report (2018) and a finalist at the THELMAs for KE initiative of the year (2018).

Donegal fiddle player Liz Doherty.

Fiddle player Liz Doherty from Buncrana, Co. Donegal lectures in traditional music at Ulster University, Magee campus, Derry. Her publications include The Cape Breton Fiddle Companion(Cape Breton University Press, 2016), a comprehensive A-Z guide to Cape Breton fiddle music which follows on from her PhD research in Cape Breton in the early 1990s. She was Co-editor of Crosbhealach an Cheoil/The Crossroads Conference 1 and 2 (Whinstone Music, Dublin, 1999 and 2013) and of Ethnomusicology Ireland(ICTM Ireland, 2015). Liz has been involved in various festivals and events and in 2012 was Director of the North Atlantic Fiddle Convention in Derry/Donegal. As a traditional arts consultant she has worked on various national and international projects, including with the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon (2005-2008). She is currently a member of Culture Ireland’s Expert Advisory Committee. In 2017 she received Ulster University’s Inspirational Teacher of the Year Award. As a fiddle player Liz has performed and recorded as a solo artist and with bands including String Sisters, Fiddlesticks and Bumblebees. She has also performed with Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin and the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra. In demand as a fiddle teacher she runs the online fiddleclinic.ie

Dr. Iseult Wilson is a senior lecturer in Physiotherapy at the School of Nursing and Midwifery at Queens University, Belfast. Following graduation from the Dublin School of Physiotherapy at Trinity College Dublin, she worked in different clinical areas and developed an interest in low back pain and associated musculoskeletal problems in a variety of different client groups including musicians. She recently completed her PhD and intends to continue her research into the PRMDs (playing-related musculoskeletal disorders) that musicians experience, with the aim of understanding more fully the issues involved, and supporting musicians in such a way as to reduce or prevent the development of these problems.