Áine Hensey

A Board member since 2018, Áine Hensey was named ITMA Board Chairperson in 2023, replacing outgoing Chair Brian Montague. Áine has worked in broadcasting since 1979. She began her career with RTÉ Radio 2 (now 2FM), and worked with Radio 1 and Clare FM before joining Raidió na Gaeltachta in 1995. Best known as a presenter and producer of traditional Irish music programmes (Heather Breeze, Sunday Folk, the Mist-Covered Mountain, Mind the Dresser, Béal Maidine, An Ghaoth Aniar, the Late Session, An Ghealach Ghorm and more) she has also been involved in the production of current affairs, sport, and history shows at both local and national levels. Most recently, she produced the flagship Raidió na Gaeltachta series of debates on the legacy of 1916. She is a regular contributor to programmes on TG4 and has acted as a script consultant on Geantraí, Gradaim Ceoil TG4, and other productions. She was a member of the selection panel for the Gradam Ceoil awards and also wrote and edited the commemorative book that was produced to mark the tenth anniversary of the Gradaim. Áine has many years of experience in the field of arts administration and public relations, having worked with the renowned youth festival, Slógadh, from the late 1970s. She has been musical director of Éigse Mrs Crotty in Kilrush, project animator with Oidhreacht an Chláir, and, since 2014, co-director of Consairtín, the national concertina convention. She was awarded a PhD in early modern history from Maynooth University in 2012 and is currently chairman of the board of directors of Gael-Linn.

Kate Barry

Kate Barry is a lawyer with over 16 years' experience in corporate firms, now working within a human rights NGO based in Northern Ireland. Originally from Sligo, Kate is a singer and whistle player.

Libby McCrohan

Libby McCrohan is an Irish traditional musician and artist from Fingal. She plays a round back Greek bouzouki. Her approach to accompaniment is sensitive, subtle, and rhythmical, taking inspiration from the reg playing of uilleann pipers. She holds a BA in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering from Trinity College Dublin as well as a Higher Diploma in Data Analytics. She is also very interested in visual arts, digital design and crafts.

Edwina Guckian

Dancer, choreographer, film maker and cultural producer Edwina Guckian hails from outside the village of Drumsna in Co. Leitrim. She learned her dancing from her mother and the local dancers of Leitrim and Roscommon. Her style is greatly influenced by the style of local music she grew up listening and dancing to. Her grandfather, Ned Lee, from Easter Snow, Co. Roscommon taught her to play the fiddle and brought her to many sessions, ceilís and rambling houses across Connacht in her youth. Having started teaching dancing at the age of 16, Edwina has now taught her steps and around the world sharing the stage with some of Ireland’s most influential acts. In 2004 Edwina established a culture club Áirc Damhsa which now has over 400 members, 11 teachers and is based in 9 counties. The following year she left her full – time primary school teaching career to focus on her personal development in dance. Since then, she has been awarded Leitrim County Council Arts person of the Year, Art’s Councils Next Generation Award and Connacht Business Person of the Year by the Irish Enterprise Board which led to her setting up www.irishdancecourses.com, an online learning hub for dancers worldwide with courses in all styles of Irish dance with the modern-day dance masters of Ireland. Since 2016, with the support of The Arts Council of Ireland, Dance Ireland and Leitrim Arts Office she hosts a hugely successful festival called Leitrim Dance Festival of which she is artistic director. She also organises many events in her community throughout the year such as the Effrinagh Crossroads Dance. In January 2020, Edwina launched her independent film production company, Dreoilín Productions, making creative videos and documentaries focusing on music, dance, heritage, culture, nature and community. Edwina continues to produce a series of public talks with Vincent Woods hosting musicians, singers and dancers from Leitrim that have had a significant impact on the tradition in the area. Supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, it is called Jenny Put the Kettle On and will see another series of the project in 2022. She is currently curating a Creative Ireland project called Sowing the Seed with her Leitrim community and further afield encouraging the return of old farming techniques to work with nature once again and looking at the traditions and folk customs associated with the land. The project featured in National Geographic December 2021 issue. In April 2022, Edwina was awards the Gradam Comaoine TG4.

Niamh Ní Charra

Niamh Ní Charra is a musician, composer and professional archivist. Strongly influenced by a wealth of local Sliabh Luachra musicians, she started playing music at the early age of 4. A multiple award winner on both fiddle and concertina, she toured from 1998 to 2006 as a soloist with Riverdance, before returning to Ireland where she is now based. Her recently released 5th album “Donnelly’s Arm”, recorded under challenging circumstance during the Covid_19 pandemic and several lockdowns, has none-the-less received much critical and public acclaim. It was crowned Number 1 Trad Album of 2021 by Alex Monaghan, reviewer for several publications including Irish Music Magazine, Living Tradition and FolkWorld. Niamh is also a professional archivist having completed an MA in Archives and Records Management at UCD. She is based at the University of Galway where she is project manager and project archivist for their two largest archives; the Conradh na Gaeilge and Mary Robinson collections. She is the Communications and Campaigns officer for the Archives and Records Association, Ireland, she is co-host of the podcast series Archive Nation, and regularly gives presentations on her work in this field, including recently at both Electric Picnic and at the International Council on Archives (ICA) conference in Rome. Along with touring extensively as a solo artist and with her own band, Niamh has also performed and recorded with The Chieftains, Galician piper Carlos Núñez, and Basque musicians Ibon Koteron and Xabi Aburruzaga. She regularly gives workshops and masterclasses on both fiddle and concertina, has performed for several presidents and members of royalty and has additionally coordinated concerts hosted by the Irish embassy, on behalf of the government. A selection of her compositions featured in ITMA’s Saothar series in July 2022.

Mairéad Hurley

Mairéad Hurley is a concertina player from a musical family in Ballymote, Co. Sligo. She has performed on stages and taught concertina master classes in Ireland and the UK, as well as in various locations across Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. In 2014, she was the resident Irish music tutor at the Gaelic Club in Sydney, Australia. In 2016, Mairéad, John Blake and Nathan Gourley released a trio album entitled The Truckley Howl, the name coming from an enigmatic phrase uttered by legendary piper Séamus Ennis. In 2021 she was part of ITMAs 'Drawing From The Well' series alongside her sister Deirdre, in which they explored the connections between tunes, songs and stories associated with the famed “Petticoat Loose” of Co. Waterford. In her professional life, she is an Assistant Professor in Science Education at Trinity College Dublin, and her research examines learning approaches which combine science with the arts. She has been successful in securing over €5M in funding for international cooperative projects on science education since 2017.

Martin O'Connell

Martin O’Connell is an accordion player and an electrical engineer from County Kerry. An accomplished and award-winning academic, Martin co-founded Nasal Medical in 2014.

Iarfhlaith Ó Domhnaill

Iarfhlaith Ó Domhnaill hails from Donegal and is a documentary film maker and fiddle player. He is also a chartered accountant.

Bernard Kirk

Bernard is co-founder of Africa Code Week and CEO of The Camden Education Trust, a not for profit with charitable status based in Ireland. A primary school teacher for over 20 years, he was also Director of the Galway Education Center, where he was responsible for teacher professional development. In 2013 Bernard was awarded an Honorary Masters in Science by NUI Galway for his contribution to Education in Ireland.

Cathal Gaffney

Cathal established Brown Bag Films with Darragh O’Connell in 1994. In 2015 Brown Bag Films was acquired by 9 Story Media Group and Cathal became the COO of 9 Story media group responsible for all animation Production, HR and Technology across the group. Employing over 1,000 talented staff across studios in Dublin, Toronto, and Bali, Brown Bag Films mission is to produce the best quality work for children on television. In 2002 Cathal directed the short film 'Give Up Yer Aul Sins' which was nominated for an Academy Award® and in 2010 Brown Bag Films were nominated for a second Academy Award® with the short film 'Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty' directed by Nicky Phelan. A graduate of ‘Leadership For Growth’ executive education programme at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. He has studied child psychology and is an honorary Fellow of IADT National Film School. Cathal was nominated for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year programme and has won an Emmy, a Peabody Award and the Murakami Award at Dingle Animation. from https://www.brownbagfilms.com/about/our-people/cathal-gaffney

Professor Tríona Ní Shíocháin

Tríona Ní Shíocháin is a sean-nós singer, whistle player, and set-dancer from the Blackwater region in North East Cork close to the Waterford border. Her family are connected to the Muskerry Gaeltacht on both her mother and father’s side, and most of her song repertoire hails from that part of the world. She was taught by the great Cúil Aodha singer, Eilís Ní Shúilleabháin. She plays music locally in Ballyduff Upper, County Waterford, a renowned stronghold of set-dancing, where she was taught the whistle from a young age by the great Bobby Gardiner of Clare. Tríona is Established Professor of Music and Performing Arts at the University of Galway, specialising in sean-nós singing, Irish traditional music and dance, Irish-language performing arts, oral theory, performance theory, and women oral composers from the 17th to the 19th centuries, and where she is also Head of the School of English, Media, and Creative Arts. She formerly held the positions of Professor of Modern Irish and Performing Arts and Head of the School of Celtic Studies at Maynooth University, prior to which she was Head of the Department of Music at UCC, where she lectured in Irish Traditional Music. Her current research focuses on Irish-language artistic research, creative practice, Irish-language feminist and gender studies, hidden histories of women’s thought and subjugated knowledges in song and lament, and the symbiosis between embodiment, vocality, and style in Irish traditional music. She is author of Singing Ideas: Performance, Politics and Oral Poetry (Berghahn 2018, 2021) and Bláth ’s Craobh na nÚdar: Amhráin Mháire Bhuí (Coiscéim 2012), and co-edited Léachtaí Cholm Cille 53: Léann Feimineach agus Inscne na Gaeilge (Irish-language feminist and gender studies) (An Sagart 2023) with Prof. Máire Ní Annracháin.