3 Nights on Spike

The Good Room & Spike Island present

3 Nights On Spike

A series of concerts on Spike Island

The Good Room and Spike Island present ‘3 Nights on Spike’, an extraordinary series of concerts featuring some of the finest Irish musical talent on a unique island location.

This very special concert series is to take place this September on the historically significant and uniquely beautiful Spike Island in Cork harbour. Music promoters, The Good Room with support from Cork County Council and Fáilte Ireland are thrilled to unveil this extraordinary series of concerts with the stunning backdrop of Cork Harbour at one of County Cork’s most important heritage sites.

Set to take place from between Friday the 15th and Sunday 17th September, this three-day musical extravaganza promises to be an unforgettable experience for all attendees. With an opening performance from Susan O’Neill and Míde Houlihan and a wealth of fantastic Irish talent to follow including Yenkee, Jack O’Rourke, Gerron and special guests; it is sure to be an exceptional weekend of music.

The concert series aims to celebrate the power of music while highlighting the breathtaking beauty of Spike Island, situated by the enchanting coastal town of Cobh, Co Cork. Concert goers take a return voyage on the Spike Island ferry from Kennedy Pier in Cobh and will have the opportunity to experience the remarkable surroundings of the former monastic settlement and military prison.

Friday 15th September

Susan O’Neill & Míde Houlihan

6.15pm & 6.45pm Sailings
Tickets €35 + Booking Fee
*Ticket includes concert and the return boat trip from Cobh to Spike Island*

Susan has spent the last few years honing her craft as a solo performer. A songwriter of hidden depths, with a timeless voice that is equal parts balm and blowtorch, she is audacity personified, a free spirit; a real performer. As of now she is Ireland’s best kept secret, however with the release of ‘In The Game’ her collaboration album with Mick Flannery that has all changed.

‘In The Game’ saw Susan receive nominations for the Choice Music prize and the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards for ‘Album of the Year’, ‘Female Folk Artist’ of the Year, and take home the Best Original Folk Track award for the collaborative song ‘Chain Reaction’. Susan was also shortlisted for the ‘Vanda and Young’ Award for her song ‘These Are the Days’. The collaboration album ended up being the biggest selling Irish independent record of 2021.

Míde Houlihan is a Clonakilty bred singer songwriter, who has captured the hearts of many an Irish audience over the last number of years.

Yenkee is a Pop project formed from the lo-fi bedroom recordings of Cork artist Graham Cooney. Cooney started recording and producing his own music at the age of 15, using minimal equipment purchased with busking money. In early 2015 he released an EP “Adieu Adieu” under his own name. Shortly after, he was given a 70’s reel to reel tape machine as a gift and began using it to write.

He studied Music in University College of Cork for one whole month, before deciding to leave to concentrate on producing his own music from the comfy confines of his bedroom. In the following 8 months, Cooney wrote a collection of songs that would eventually become Yenkee. Inspired by artists such as Marvin Gaye, Rostam Batmanglij and Ariel Pink, Yenkee’s sound was more Pop-oriented – with hooks, catchy melodies, and fun lyrics – all produced using the tasteful palettes of 60’s and 70’s rock. The tape machine he had been given ended up playing a massive part in the sound he was to create – groove-driven Pop coated in gentle tape hiss.

Cooney spent the bones of 2 years working on this sound, before releasing a slew of singles in 2018, to much acclaim. “Are You Alright?”, Yenkee’s first release, has garnered over 35,000 plays on Spotify and was selected in ThePointOfEverything’s top 5 songs of 2018. ‘Lander’, a hip-hop Kanye West inspired piece of auto-tuned Pop, was selected for Spotify’s ‘New Éire’ playlist, placing Yenkee among the top up and coming Irish bands.

Gerron is an Irish singer-songwriter making melancholic alt-pop which explores imagined storylines through complex arrangements characterised by rich harmonies and intricate rhythms. With the unavoidable inspiration of growing up homeschooled in a musical household, she first started composing instrumentals at the age of 8 bouncing from genre to genre for fun.

6.15pm & 6.45pm Sailings
Tickets €35 + Booking Fee
*Ticket includes concert and the return boat trip from Cobh to Spike Island*

Wild Place is Jack’s first release since 2019’s Ivory Towers and the first full album release since his acclaimed debut, Dreamcatcher, which entered the Irish Top 5. In the intervening years Jack has established himself as one of Ireland’s finest songsmiths and a live favourite. 

For the recording of Wild Place, during lockdown, Jack and his band based themselves in Triskel Christchurch in Cork and used the wonderful acoustics and Triskel’s grand piano to great effect. The results are probably Jack’s most endearing work to date – the songs emanating from a soulful and folk-inspired place. 

Jack first came to prominence with his ode to misunderstood youth and growing up gay, ‘Silence’, became a torch song for the Irish Marriage Equality Referendum and won the Nashville Songwriting Competition (judges included Tom Waits and Bill Withers). 

Chosen as a 2019 headliner for Other Voices, Jack was featured prominently in the television series (most recently part of the Home special in December, featuring himself. Loah, Villagers and Denise Chaila) and his collaboration, ‘New Day’ with electronic artist Kormac has nearly 500,000 views for its award winning music video. 

“Wild Place has songs of love and loss, beautiful misfits, nature and wilderness,” says Jack. “There’s freedom and rage in there too, alongside questions on race, friendship, a still-Covid world, giving the glad eye, my dreams and sea swimming. The piano and vocal are centre, but there are elements of folk, roots, blues, Americana and chamber music.” There’s also a song, ‘Strange Bird’ written about the last year and a half – a drone recording a town during lockdown and all we’ve lost and gained. It’s influenced hugely by John Prine – “When John Prine died during Covid, it was a Bowie or Cohen or Prince moment – I was heartbroken without knowing him personally – his lyrics and his style meant so much, and his songwriting always floored me. There’s a Steinbeck or Mark Twain quality – he says so much without being flowery.”

Jack teamed up with members of Crash Ensemble, Clare Sands, Hugh Dillon and Aisling Fitzpatrick to record Wild Place, with a live quality brought to the songs by Ber Quinn’s mixing. Jack’s long-standing drummer, David Ryan, produced the album, despite not using drums on any of the tracks and it was mastered in Canada by Philip Shaw (Feist and Bon Iver). 

The first four singles from Wild Place have received extensive airplay on the country’s airwaves and the tour has thus far, sold out venues across the country. A captivating live performer, Jack will bring the music of Wild Place to life doing what he loves best – seated at a piano with his band, and sharing some of his moving and sublime songs with his audience.

Jack is renowned for playing with special guests while on tour and this very unique concert on Spike island will be no different. His duets are legendary so who knows what great singers will join him on the night.