Venue & Date: St. Barrahane's Church, Castletownshend, Co. Cork. Sunday 26 July, 2026
Tickets €25
Online (booking fee), at the door, at Thornhill Electrical Skibbereen or text/call 086 226 4797
NEW: At the door only, under 19 FREE.
Beautiful, exciting, varied: harp, viols, flute, harpsichord, voice. Endless combinations possible.
Sarah Groser and Norah O’Leary - viols, Laoise O’Brien – recorder, Malcolm Proud - keyboards, Siobhan Armstrong - harp, and Mark Chambers – voice.
In This Light
A concert of Renaissance music performed by The Earls of Ormond in one of West Cork's most remarkable sacred spaces — St Barrahane's Church, Castletownshend, home to three Harry Clarke windows.
The programme draws on the world of the Butler Earls of Ormond — the great Norman dynasty moving between the Elizabethan court and Gaelic Ireland — and is inspired by the church's figures in glass, among them St Cecilia, patron saint of music, and the deeply local St Barrahane himself. Works by Byrd, Dowland, and others sit alongside Gaelic airs and bardic tradition.
Performed by Siobhán Armstrong, Mark Chambers, Sarah Groser, Laoise O'Brien, Norah O'Leary, and Malcolm Proud.
The Earls of Ormond
The Earls of Ormond brings together a collective of musicians who specialise in historically informed performance.
Individually, they have performed throughout Ireland and internationally, and they come together as the Earls of Ormond to perform ensemble music of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The core group of musicians performs on wind, string and keyboard instruments.
Based in the medieval city of Kilkenny, the consort is inspired by the historical buildings and rich cultural heritage of the Marble City and this rich tapestry of history, heritage and culture informs the group’s musical direction.
In addition to exploring instrumental music, the consort looks forward to collaborating with vocalists to perform both sacred and secular music from the era.
Siobhán Armstrong – historical harps
Siobhán Armstrong is a performer, academic, artistic director, and educator working with reconstructions of medieval to baroque harps, including the multi-row arpa doppia, arpa de dos órdenes, and the Gaelic cláirseach. She has performed with leading international period-instrument ensembles including Les Arts Florissants, The Academy of Ancient Music, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, and Florilegium, with recordings on Deutsche Grammophon, Sony, Virgin Classics, and Delphian among others. The debut CD of her ensemble The Irish Consort, Music, Ireland and the Sixteenth Century, was an Irish Times top-five Classical Music pick of 2021.
Born in Dublin, Siobhán graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 1987, sang professionally with the RTE Chamber Choir, and won national and international prizes for modern Irish harp. She studied historical harp with Andrew Lawrence King at the Akademie für Alte Musik in Bremen and now divides her time between Kilkenny and London.
Siobhán is founding director (2003) of The Historical Harp Society of Ireland, spearheading the revival of the brass-strung ancient harp of Ireland and Scotland. She was awarded a PhD (Middlesex University, 2022) for research into 1790s harp transcriptions and was appointed Historical Harp professor at The Royal College of Music in 2024. She gratefully acknowledges the support of Music Network and The Arts Council of Ireland.
Mark Chambers - voice
Since graduating from the Royal Northern College of Music, Mark Chambers has established himself as a versatile and distinguished vocalist, performing internationally with leading ensembles and conductors. His solo repertoire spans from Baroque masterpieces to contemporary works, including Bach’s St Matthew Passion and Mass in B Minor with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 with Paul McCreesh (Deutsche Grammophon), and Beloved and Beautiful with the Nederlandse Bachvereniging under Jos van Veldhoven. He collaborates regularly with acclaimed ensembles including The Monteverdi Choir, Tenebrae, Gallicantus, The Gabrieli Consort Alamire, and the Academy of Ancient Music and is a core member of Chamber Choir Ireland and Resurgam. His discography includes solo recitals of Rubbra and Vaughan Williams, and recordings with The English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble across their acclaimed European series. Now based in Wexford, Mark combines an active performance career with part-time lectureships in voice at the University of Birmingham and University College Dublin.
Sarah Groser – viols
Sarah Groser first played the viola da gamba as a child, At Manchester University she studied both Baroque cello and viol with Charles Medlam of London Baroque and continued on to Rotterdam's Conservatorium to study Baroque cello with Jaap ter Linden. Later she had lessons with Jordi Savall as an external student at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. Sarah was a member of the Rose Consort of Viols for fifteen years and of Sonnerie
under Monica Huggett for three years. She has also played with London Baroque, Fretwork, Charivari Agréable, and the Dowland Consort. In 2001 Sarah moved from England to West
Cork, Ireland, where she is in frequent demand as both a solo bass viol player and as a continuo player.
Malcolm Proud – harpsichord/organ
Malcolm Proud won first prize at the Edinburgh International Harpsichord Competition in 1982 after a year of study with Gustav Leonhardt. He is harpsichordist and organist with the Irish Baroque Orchestra and Camerata Kilkenny and performs with Chamber Choir Ireland, Resurgam and Sestina. His international career has included playing all six Brandenburg Concertos with Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s English Baroque Soloists at the BBC London Proms and the
Schleswig-Holstein Festival, and he has worked with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Academy of Ancient Music, European Union Baroque Orchestra and Akademie für alte Musik Berlin. He has toured Japan in a production of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo with Mark Padmore in the lead rôle. In 2018 he curated a series of concerts at the National Concert Hall in Dublin marking the 350th anniversary of François Couperin’s birth, and in 2022 he performed Book 1 of Bach’s
‘Well-tempered Clavier’ at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival, the Kilkenny Arts Festival and the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin. Malcolm Proud is Emeritus Organist at St Canice’s Cathedral Kilkenny and has given recitals on historic organs such as the 15th century instrument at
Valère-Sion in Switzerland, the 1565 Antegnati in Mantua, the 1610 Compenius at Frederiksborg in Denmark and the 1766 Riepp at Ottobeuren near Munich. He has given organ recitals in Boston and Virginia. Over 40 CD recordings include Purcell’s Harpsichord music, Bach’s Six Partitas, the Goldberg Variations and (on organ) Clavierübung III. He has recorded Brandenburg 5 with both the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the English Baroque Soloists.
Laoise O’Brien - recorders
Recorder player, Laoise O'Brien, has been described in the Irish Times as a crusader with mesmerising skills and boundless imagination.
Laoise has been championing the recorder since discovering the versatility and virtuosity of this historic instrument while a student of the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. She has promoted the recorder through concert performances, education, recording, and broadcasting, working with multiple ensembles and arts organisations in Ireland.
Laoise previously studied flute at the College of Music in Dublin graduating with a BMus (Perf), and holds a Masters in Performance and Musicology from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth.
As a performer, Laoise has appeared as a soloist and guest musician with numerous ensembles including the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Irish Chamber Orchestra, Irish Baroque Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Sestina, Resurgam,
the Irish Consort and Camerata Kilkenny.
In addition to her work as a recording producer, Laoise has contributed to several radio broadcasts and has presented documentaries for RTÉ lyric fm including the award-winning, Sonnets for the Cradle, and Goedemorgen, Amsterdam a feature on the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland's tour to the Netherlands in 2018. More recently, she has presented and produced a radio feature, For the Record, which explores the history of the recorder alongside Laoise's own history as a musician.
Laoise is passionate about connection within the music community and regularly undertakes projects which reach music lovers of all ages. She is Executive Producer of the TU Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra, Chair of the Irish Association of Youth Orchestras, part of the programming committee of Music in Kilkenny, and sits on the Local Music Education Partnership of Music Generation Kilkenny.
Norah O’Leary – viols
Norah Catherine O’Leary is an Irish cellist and viol player specialising in period instrument performance. She holds a first-class Master’s degree in Performance of Early Music from the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, where she studied with Louna Hosia and Markku Luolajan-Mikkola, and participated in mentoring projects with the Nordic Baroque Orchestra and Concerto Copenhagen.
Norah performs regularly with leading early music ensembles including the Finnish Baroque Orchestra, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Camerata Kilkenny, Sestina Music, Cork Baroque Orchestra, Ensemble Scania Barock, and Ensemble OrQuestra. She has recorded with London Early Opera for Signum Records’ Handel’s Queens (2019), and has collaborated with artists such as Bridget Cunningham, Peter Whelan, Dame Emma Kirkby, Laurence Cummings, and Lars Ulrik Mortensen.
A founding member of Ensemble Dagda and co-founder of The Earls of Ormond, she has appeared at major festivals across Ireland and Finland. Alongside performing, Norah is an active researcher and writer, curating programmes and writing programme notes for numerous organisations. She currently teaches at the County Wexford School of Music and holds the position of Assistant Lecturer at SETU Music School. In 2026, Norah was awarded a grant under the Music Capital Scheme, supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media and managed by Music Network, to purchase a Viol bow and case. She is very grateful for this support.