Friends of the Irish Night returns to Jarrow for April 2023

The next installment of the ever-popular Friends of the Irish Night is taking place on Thursday, April 27.

Regular hosts Shamrock Street, described as ‘one of the liveliest Irish party bands’ in the North East, will perform before embarking on a tour of the Netherlands, which will see them perform several gigs as well as making two TV appearances.

However, there will be some special guests at the April Friends of the Irish Night, which takes place, as usual, on the last Thursday of each month at the Alberta Club in Jarrow.

Organiser Eddie Mcintyre said: “A special feature of the Alberta session will be a guest appearance of Robert and Anna, the leaders of top show band The Emerald Thieves, who will perform a cameo of Celtic classics.”

A selection of floor singers is also expected to perform at the evening, which gets under way at 8.15pm.

There is no cover charge for the event at the venue, in Railway Street, admission is free.

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

Last year, 2022, marked its diamond anniversary, and organisers hope it has many more years left as a firm fixture of South Tyneside’s cultural calendar.

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.

Traces of the Irish accent can be found in parts of South Tyneside, as can many Irish names.