TRÍONA & MAIGHREAD NÍ DHOMHNAILL

They then went their separate ways. Tríona went on to play with various bands, including the legendary Bothy Band, Relativity, Touchstone and Nightnoise. Her sister Maighread took a step back from the music scene for a while. Yet they remained very close, and in 1999 they released an album with Dónal Lunny. More than 25 years after that superb album, the Ní Dhomhnaill sisters have reunited to bring us a truly beautiful album, Seo Muid – Here’s Us. Having sung together since they were very young, this time they have brought together songs that, for the most part, they had never recorded, even though they had been singing them for decades. There are ten tracks here : five songs in Irish, four in English and, most unusually, one in Breton, ‘Kouskit’, a lullaby heard and learnt by Tríona over 50 years ago in the Pays Vannetais. The Breton musician Pol Huellou has recovered the lyrics for this song.
We hear a few standards from the Irish tradition such as ‘Cad é sin don té sin’, a very famous song covered by both Irish and Breton musicians. But this time the two sisters have arranged several versions of this song, and the melody is entirely new. There is also ‘Cailín deas cúiseach na mbó’, a song learnt from their aunt Neilí, just like ‘It’s Not In the Morning’. Or ‘Cumha an fhile’, written and composed by S.B. MacGrianna, a poet from Rann na Feirste, the birthplace of the Ó Domhnaill family.
We also recognise ‘No Come Again’, a song by Eddie Butcher, originally from County Derry. And ‘Once I Knew a Pretty Girl’, which featured on a Joan Baez recording in the 1960s.
At the helm of the album is guitarist and accordionist Seán Og Graham, who, during the recording, brought out the very best in them, particularly showcasing the absolutely magnificent voices of Maighread and Tríona. Let’s not forget Niamh Dunne on the fiddle and Conor McCreanor on the double bass.
Surely one of the best albums of 2026.

CeolTAM 0001- www.trionaandmaighreadnidhomhnaill.bandcamp.com