Wexford band Green Road kick off US tour on a high note

TRAD and folk Wexford band Green Road are performing at several US cities in and around St Patrick's Day this year.

The band are Ballycullane man PJ Sinnott (on lead vocals and five-string banjo), Ballymitty man Jon Reville (mandolin and tenor banjo), Ferns man Tony McCabe (base guitar and vocals), Duncannon man Ned Wall (Uilleann pipes, low whistles) and Glynn man Fergal O'Hanlon (guitar and vocals). They are accompanied by soprano, Clodagh Kinsella, from Poulpeasty, on the tour which began on Friday at a St Patrick's Day Celebration Concert in The Village Theatre, Danville, California, and ens this Saturday.

On Saturday, the band performed at the St Patrick's Day Parade and at the Civic Center, San Francisco, representing the United Irish Cultural Centre. Two showcase events followed at The Mad Dog in the Fog Pub in San Francisco and at Fiddlers Green, Millbrae, California.

On Sunday, they performed a St Patrick's Day Celebration Concert at the United Irish Cultural Center, San Francisco.

On Wednesday, March 15, Green Road and Kinsella perform another concert at the Fine Arts Auditorium, Armstrong Campus, Georgia Southern University, Savannah, Georgia and concerts in Massachusetts.

Following their sell out concerts in Danville and San Francisco, the musicians are on their way to Savannah, GA where they will play a special fundraising concert in aid of bursaries for students to attend the Georgia Southern campus in Wexford town. This concert is being promoted by the Centre for Irish Studies at Georgia Southern in collaboration with the Savannah Hibernian Society.

They will then go to Boston, where as well as being the headline St Patrick’s Day act at the Irish Cultural Centre in Canton, they have also been invited to make a special appearance at the JFK Presidential Library at 2 p.m. on St Patrick’s Day to mark the 60th anniversary of President Kennedy’s visit to New Ross.

This performance will feature the two songs that were sung for him on his arrival in the town of New Ross in 1963, the Boys of Wexford (the President’s favourite song) and Kelly the Boy from Killanne and this concert will be live streamed to a very wide audience.

Before visiting the Kennedy Library, soprano Kinsella, Green Road’s guest on the tour, will be opening the liturgy and leading the choir and congregation in the singing of Hail Glorious St Patrick at the special St Patrick’s Day 11 a.m. mass at Holy Cross Cathedral.

Uileann piper Ned Wall of Green Road will play St Patrick’s breastplate at the Offertory and Kinsella will also sing Sean O’Riada’s Ag Criost an Siol at the Communion. Irish Tenor Ciaran Nagle is also performing at the mass which will presided over by Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley.

Tour Manager Sean Reidy said: To have received these very important invitations to the Kennedy Library and Holy Cross Cathedral is a great honour for Green Road and Clodagh. They are great ambassadors for the town of New Ross and County Wexford.

"These prestigious engagements could not have been secured without the tremendous support of Culture Ireland and the Irish Consulate in Boston, and of course the support of members of the Kennedy family and the director of the JFK Library, Alan Price.”