AOIBHE KETTLE
Past & Future Present
words: Kieran Owens
Currently living in Galway, but having recently moved from a three-year sojourn in Limerick, where she has just graduated with first class honours from the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, the harper Aoibhe Kettle spoke to Totally Dublin about her own musical past, her present activities, and her aspirations for the future.
In every generation a new talent emerges who delves into the rich history of Irish traditional music and brings to it insights and inspirations that alter its current character, guiding its positive development by setting it on a new path and thus securing its future national and international cultural relevance.
In earlier times, to name but a few of many, individual musicians such as Derek Bell, Martin Hayes, Sharon Shannon, Laoise Kelly, Zoë Conway, Donal Lunny, Cormac Breatnach and Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, as well as groups such as The Chieftains, Planxty, Moving Hearts, Deiseal, Clannad, De Dannan, and, more recently, Navá and Lankum, have taken the time-honoured materials of the old tradition and have fused them with eclectic musical influences, creating new sounds that pay homage to the past but which intelligently and purposefully steer the tradition into exciting uncharted waters.
Into this world of musical pioneers now steps the 22-year-old harper and fiddle player Aoibhe Kettle. Already with nearly two decades of exposure to and experimentation with both classical music and the music of the Irish tradition, Aoibhe is on the threshold of a professional career featuring her original compositions, for recording and live performances, that blend her reverence for the past with her open-minded and open-hearted enthusiasm for new musical challenges.
Last August, 2025, Aoibhe was invited by Martin Hayes to perform at his Masters of Tradition Festival in Bantry. It was a very generous invitation from one of the tradition’s current greats to one of the very best of its newcomers.
You started playing harp at the age of twelve. Who were your teachers?
For the first two years, I learned primarily through YouTube. I found a series of five or six lessons by Lisa Canny and I honestly couldn’t get enough of them. My mam would suggest that I try another video, but I was completely absorbed in learning that way.
Before I started going to Comhaltas, I was really influenced by Laoise Kelly's performance on Achill Island when I was younger. Her playing made a huge impression on me. I have a very vivid memory of listening to her 1999 album, Just Harp, on long journeys in the car. It became almost the soundtrack to those journeys, so I think that had quite a subconscious influence on me.
At that time, I didn’t have a smartphone or access to Spotify, so my exposure to music was quite different to what it is now. A lot of it came through CDs, going to concerts, physical books and whatever I could find on YouTube. Looking back, I think those different ways of encountering music was really important in shaping my early musical education and love for the genre.
Could you have reached the level that you are now at without the internet?
That’s an interesting question. It definitely gave me a starting point and now in my career I’d say it plays a huge part in my learning. That would be through online recordings and access to the Irish Traditional Music Archive on Merrion Square. When I’m learning tunes or preparing for a gig, to be able to go and find an old recording is so important. Very often, a tune’s quality will start to fizzle out over time and you do not know what the true representation of it is. You could be playing a modernised version of it, which is not frowned upon, but for your own research it is good to be able to listen to older versions.
You were home educationed and had, by then, developed a serious commitment to traditional music. How did your playing relationship with your brother Naoise and your sisters Lily and Nelldevelop?
Being from the same family, I think there’s a natural understanding between us. It’s a bit like siblings who sing together you know each other’s nuances and instincts, and there’s often a really natural blend that comes from that. I think that’s something you can hear when we play together. Obviously, being home educated, we spent a lot of time together, which gave us the opportunity to play, experiment and develop a natural sense of collaboration.
Of course, when you’re younger, you tend to take those things for granted. As we all got older, though, we began to appreciate and embrace how special it was to have that shared musical background and the ability to create music together as a family
Tell me about your time at the TU Dublin Conservatoire.
At the time and had my sights set on going to Scotland, with the intention of continuing to develop both harp, fiddle and violin. Although I was becoming increasingly focused on traditional music, I was still playing classical music and had just finished my time with the National Youth Orchestra. I didn’t want to lose what I had learned through that experience, so I wanted to find a way of combining both styles of performance.
In 2021, I auditioned for the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow to see if it would be possible to pursue both disciplines. I was offered two places that would have allowed me to combine the two styles.
Around the same time, I met classical harpist Professor Cliona Doris, who was involved with the Harp Ensemble at TU Dublin Conservatoire. She encouraged me to apply, particularly as Gráinne Hambly, a traditional Irish harper, who was teaching there. I was accepted and spent a year there, which was a brilliant experience. I learned an enormous amount during that period, particularly through my involvement with the Harp Ensemble.
In November 2022, we performed with the Harp Ensemble at Farmleigh House as guests of the Dublin Philharmonic Society. That experience was another important stage in my development.
At a very early stage, and in particular since that Farmleigh concert in 2022, you have been performing your own extraordinary compositions at a very high level of quality. How do you see the progression of your compositional journey over those past four years?
Up until that point, my compositional practice had largely been something I did independently, in my own time at home. Since moving into this environment and meeting so many wonderful musicians, I’ve had the opportunity to collaborate much more and to share compositional ideas with people who have similar interests and understand where I’m coming from musically. That has really opened up my approach to composition and made it a much more collaborative process. I can only see that as a positive. It has given me the encouragement, space and opportunity to keep composing
Are there mental and cultural barriers that make it difficult to veer away from the strictly traditional canon and towards what you and others like you are creating, which will presumably become the traditional repertoire for players in the far future?
I don’t think there are any barriers for me personally when it comes to composition. I feel very free to compose new music, and it tends to happen quite organically and naturally. Even when I’m creating something new, I find that I always come back to the tradition. That’s where my strongest musical connection and emotional response lies, so it naturally becomes part of whatever I’m composing.
On a compositional level, my vision is to be inspired by and work with as many diverse musicians and musical styles as possible. Ultimately, I want to reach a point where I am seen not just as a musician, but as an artist, and where other people see value in the music I compose.
My final-year degree performance was the first time that other musicians had learned and performed my compositions. Some of my tunes are not necessarily transferable to different instruments, and I had always thought of my compositions as being primarily for solo harp. I knew for several years, though, that I wanted at least half of my final-year concert to consist of my own work. To hear those pieces performed with piano, guitar, bodhrán and fiddle accompanying me was an amazing experience. It worked, and I absolutely loved hearing the music take on a life beyond the solo harp.
Your concert at Castletown House on Friday 25th September will feature you on harp and fiddle and Brendan O’Connell on concertina and guitar. What music will you be performing?
Brendan is a composer as well as a player, so will both be playing a selection of our own pieces as well as a number of works from the traditional repertoire. So the idea for the upcoming Castletown concert is to perform a mixture of styles that will allow us to create something special together as a collaboration, as opposed to just be accompanying each others compositions. The idea is to keep it as organic and as free from strict rules as possible. It will be an attempt to try and step away from the limitations of theoretical composing and to try to include as much informed improvisation as possible.
In addition, we will be exploring some of the music of Turlough O’Carolan, as I did my UL thesis on the interconnection between Irish traditional and Baroque music. My thesis was based on the notion of how the traditional and the classical genres influenced each other. I focussed on 'O’Carolan’s Concerto' and it was very interesting to see how approaches to the transcriptions of the piece changed over many decades depending on what was considered to be the popular music of each era.
In one hundred years time, Aoibhe Kettle will be assessed for her mastery of the ancient tradition but also for compositions based on the historical occurrences of the time through which she lived. Do you compose with an eye to current issues?
That’s a tricky question. I like to have a story or some kind of narrative behind what I’m composing, but when it comes to things that are happening in the present, I don’t always feel that I can credibly write about them. I tend to look further back into Irish history and find stories that have a strong connection to the country and its people.
For example, with my Famine Suite, I was drawn to a historical subject rather than trying to respond directly to current political events or emotions. I think I naturally gravitate towards stories that have a sense of history and cultural significance, and then I try to explore those ideas through the music rather than making a direct political statement.
Aoibhe Kettle (harp & fiddle) and Brendan O’Connell (concertina & guitar) play a headline concert at Castletown House in Celbridge, Co. Kildare, on Friday 25th September 2026. Their performance is presented by the OPW as part of the venue’s year-long Cultural Programme. Doors open at 7.30pm and the performance runs from 8pm to 9.30pm. Tickets are €20, including booking fee, and are available from www.eventbrite.ie
The longer and entire original interview with Aoibhe Kettle can be read on the Totally Dublin website at www.totallydublin.ie