Irish musician Luka Bloom performs in Carrick-on-Shannon

The Dock is delighted to welcome Luka Bloom back to Carrick-on-Shannon for an intimate gig of great songs and stories on January 20 at 8pm.

Armed only with an acoustic guitar and a fantastic voice, Luka Bloom always wins audiences over completely. He will play a choice selection of his songs, some of which he's rerecorded for the triple album Wave Up to the Shore: 51 songs for 51 years.

Martin Hayes, one of the most significant tablets to emerge in Irish traditional music, said: "Luka has achieved the most important thing when it comes to the playing of these tunes; he has captured their beauty."

In 1972, Barry Moore wrote a song called Wave Up to the Shore. It was not his first song, but it had something. He did some gigs and wrote some songs, and in 1987, he boarded a plane for New York, and Luka Bloom was born. Riverside was released in 1990 on Reprise Records. It was followed by The Acoustic Motorbike and Turf.

"This recording illustrates amply Luka's innate and deep love of music-rendered as it is with equal measures of magic and masterly execution," said the Irish singer and record producer Iarla O'Lionaird.

The US, Australia, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, and The UK were frequent destinations for Luka's songs during the early 1990s, where his life of writing, recording and touring took off. 

As well as his touring, Luka has performed at some of the great festivals: Pinkpop (Holland), Roskilde (Denmark), Torhout\Werchter (Belgium), Newport Folk Festival (US), Byron Blues Festival (Australia), Glastonbury (UK, and Cambridge, (UK). And most of all, he regularly sings all over the island of Ireland, where he lives in County Clare.

Since 2000, Luka has been releasing his songs and music via www.lukabloom.com.

Seventeen independent albums in total, as well as a book of photographs and some lyrics called Homeplace. In 2022, Luka sang Wave Up to the Shore at home one afternoon.

He suddenly realised it was 50 years old. This resulted in a triple CD of 50 songs from the past 50 years — a reworking of songs written and learned since 1972.

"I'm delighted that Luka has finally placed his immense guitar-playing skills front and centre on this new offering….A thing of magic and beauty created by a fully committed heart," said the Australian musician Steve Cooney.

Tickets are €25. For more information, please visit https://www.thedock.ie/whats-on/luka-bloom.