Shamrock Street return for September 2022 Friends of the Irish Night

The much-loved Friends of the Irish Night has been running in South Tyneside for six decades, with Celtic group Shamrock Street the present regular hosts.

But the group have gave way to guest hosts over the summer as they hit the road, performing notable gigs in Edinburgh and the Netherlands.

Now they four-piece is back to reclaim the stage and get toes tapping with another dose of music from the Emerald Isle.

The experienced group is comprised of Ged Cuscin on electric fiddle and flute, Kevin Campbell on guitar and mandolin, Martin Finney on percussion, Paul Lucas on mandolin and banjo, and Mick McCormack on guitar.

Event organiser Eddie Mcintyre said: “It’ll be the first time in three months we’ve had Shamrock Street, as they have been performing in Edinburgh and the north of Holland.”

The Friends of the Irish Night at the Alberta Club in Jarrow takes place on the last Thursday of each month, which this month falls on September 29.

There is no cover charge for the event at the venue, in Railway Street, admission is free, with proceedings getting under way at 8.15pm.

The Friends of Irish Night is one of South Tyneside’s longest-running regular events, dating back to 1962.

The event originally took place at the Bede’s Club, but moved to its ‘new’ home at the Alberta Club more than 25 years ago, with the new hosts promising organisers at the time ‘we will look after you’.”

The Friends of the Irish Night may have been running for some six decades, but South Tyneside, and Jarrow and Hebburn, have been alive with the sounds of music from Ireland for more than a century, thanks to the settlers who came over to work in the heavy industries on the River Tyne.

The Irish workers’ influence on the area is well documented, with the area having been dubbed ‘Little Ireland’ due to the large population of people from Hibernia who came to know Tyneside as home.