Fun fact as Tucson gets ready to celebrate the 250th anniversary of its founding: The guy who set Tucson in motion was a red-haired son of an Irish aristocrat named Hugh O’Connor.
That could explain the popularity of all things Irish and Celtic in Tucson.
By some sources, as many as 48,000 Tucsonans have some sort of Irish or Scottish descent, based on the 2020 U.S. Census, and thousands show up to show off their Irish pride at the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade and Festival, being held this year on March 16 at Armory Park.
OK to be fair, many people claim Irish ancestry on St. Patrick’s Day as an excuse to drink green beer. But we digress.
But our music scene arguably best defines our Irish bonafides.
On Saturday, Feb. 22, seven Irish bands and three solo acts will share the Berger Center for the Performing Arts stage for the second annual Tucson Irish Music Showcase.
Mikey and Katie Dunlavey perform as the Irish duo The Wild Swans. The couple also conceived the Tucson Irish Music Showcase to highlight Tucson Irish music groups and musicians.
“It’s a good mix of singing and instrumental music,” In Concert Tucson promoter Don Gest said of the lineup, curated by the Wild Swans duo Mikey and Katie Dunlavey.
In Concert is presenting the showcase, which will feature authentic Irish and Celtic instruments including the Irish harp that Mary Bouley plays with her Strike Your Fancy duo partner Keith Reins and the penny whistle Pernela Jones plays when not playing ukelele or bodhran with trio The Wholigans, which has had a seat at Tucson’s Irish music table since the 1990s.
You’ll hear pan-Celtic singer Dave Shaul sing in Celtic, which is a far cry from the English he grew up with in his native Wyoming. Margaret Eller, a native of Clonmel in County Tipperary, Ireland, sings in Celtic and Irish languages and plays the bodhran that she got from the Irish bodhran great Paul Phillips.
Tucson also will hear the rarely played uilleann pipes from Mikey Dunlavey, who with his wife moved to Tucson from his native Pennsylvania in 2021.
Púca and the Wild Ones — from left, Andrea Hoag, Dave Firestine, Claire Zucker and Keith Reins — have a long Irish and Celtic music history collectively and individually.
Dunlavey, who retired from the Army in 2011 and worked as a soccer coach and mountain bike guide before fully retiring, had been playing Irish music all his life. He grew up in a big Irish family that treasured and celebrated its heritage.
“I just enjoyed the love of the heritage and the music from both of our families,” he said.
He listened to his dad’s Clancy Brothers and Dubliners records but didn’t pick up a guitar and start playing until he was in his 20s. Even then, music was “always kind of on the back burner with my duties as a full-time Army officer,” he said.
When he retired, Dunlavey played with The Celtic Hooligans for 10 years and with other Irish bands while his wife, a nurse, cheered on the sidelines.
Dunnóg — from left, mandolin and banjo player Tom Ryan, fiddler Sharon Goldwasser and Keith Reins on guitar and vocals — play so-called Irish cottage music, a mix of lively jigs and reels that musicians play around a kitchen table or on the front porch.
Katie Dunlavey left nursing during the pandemic and taught middle school when the couple came to Tucson. She also took up the bodhran (Irish drum) and the concertina and formed The Wild Swans with her husband in 2023. The couple played Tucson Meet Yourself that year and now play a weekly Irish music session at Hotel McCoy on the west side.
During the couple’s set on Saturday, expect to hear Dunlavey sprinkle a few stories and poetry in the mix of traditional Irish ballads and songs.
The traditional Celtic music quartet The Out of Kilters — from left, fiddler Peter Rodgers, Russ Healy on accordion, Katie Dunlavey on Bodhrán and Tom Feild on guitar and mandolin — play everything from rousing ballads to traditional Irish jigs, reels and polkas.
“We’re excited to have the musicians that we have,” including a few newcomers, he said. “I just look forward to see where it will take us or if it will morph into something else.”
Saturday’s showcase at the Berger, 1200 W. Speedway on the Arizona Schools for the Deaf and the Blind campus, starts at 7 p.m. Tickets are $15 at the Folk Shop, 2525 N. Campbell Ave., or online at inconcerttucson.com.
Also on the lineup: Jeffrey Buggy, The Out of Kilters, The Shanties, Púca and the Wild Ones and Dunnóg.
