Pittsburgh Irish Festival to livestream Facebook concert series

The Pittsburgh Irish Festival will livestream a series of Irish music performances on its Facebook page.

The Live Stream Irish Music Series is a partnership with the Irish Design Center.

This week’s schedule includes:

• Wednesday: Mickey Spain, 7 p.m.; and Mike Flaherty, 8 p.m.

• Thursday: Katie Grennan (Pittsburgh-born fiddler) and John Williams (accordion and concertina), 7 p.m., and The Low Kings (a series of solo performances), 8 p.m.

Next week’s performers will be Colm Keegan, Terry Griffith and County Mayo, with others to be announced weekly.

The purpose of the series is to further the festival’s mission of preserving and promoting Irish culture and to support Pittsburgh Irish Festival favorite musicians facing tough times due to tour and concert cancellations, according to a release.

“We hope that this series will bring a smile to the faces of our online community, support bands and performers during this crisis, and perhaps introduce Irish music to many who are not already familiar,” says Mairin Petrone, Pittsburgh Irish Festival executive director.

Featured acts

The festival provided brief biographies of performers:

• Colm Keegan: A Dublin-born, multi-award-winning singer Colm Keegan best known as one of the principal singers with the PBS show, “Celtic Thunder,” and with Celtic Woman.

• County Mayo: The band has been performing in Northeast Ohio and Northwester Pennsylvania for more than 30 years. The band specializes in Irish ballads, but their repertoire also includes Scottish, Australian and Canadian songs as well as familiar Irish-American favorites and American folk tunes.

• Katie Grennan and John Williams: The pair have performed around the world and have had appearances on BBC, PBS and Dreamworks, along with Riverdance and the Chieftains.

• Mickey Spain: A second-generation folk singer and songwriter from the mill town of Manchester, N.H., he and his brother Liam performed Irish and American folk songs as The Spain Brothers. He is also writers children’s songs and has recorded a CD of his material with his band, The Mickey Spain Musical Jamboree.

• Mike Flaherty: A folk singer and balladeer from Pittsburgh’s South Hills influenced by The Irish Tenors, Tommy Makem, The Dubliners and the music of Celtic Thunder, Flaherty’s interpretations of “Danny Boy,” “Grace” and “Galway Girl” are fan favorites.

• Scythian: Formed more than 12 years ago by a group of college buddies playing Celtic music in the streets, the band now performs on the U.S. Celtic festival circuit as well as the bluegrass/Americana festival circuit.

• Terry Griffith: Griffith has performed Irish ballads in local Irish pub, at Irish festivals, Renaissance fairs and fundraisers all over the U.S. for more than three decades. He is known for his rich baritone interpretation of Irish ballads.

• The Low Kings: The Pittsburgh-based band plays traditional and modern Irish and Scottish music all over the city.