Dervish

Overview

Music from the West of Ireland with passionate vocals and dazzling instrumentals. The Sligo Borough Council’s decision to award Dervish the Freedom of the Borough of Sligo cemented the group’s position as preeminent band in Ireland’s wild west. It raised them into the exalted company of poet W.B. Yeats, who was the first person to be awarded the freedom of Sligo. Built upon two sturdy pillars — the hauntingly charismatic vocals of Cathy Jordan and the dazzling virtuosity of award-winning instrumentalists like Tom Morrow on fiddle, Liam Kelly on flute, and Shane Mitchell on accordion, Dervish is a solid structure of a band, its foundation in legendary pub sessions, its shape the result of years of international touring. In the most recent of many honors, Dervish was recently chosen to represent Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest. In 2005, just after the group toured China in the company of the Prime Minister, Ireland’s premier music magazine Hot Press voted the band Best Traditional / Folk Group.