{"id":295775,"date":"2026-01-21T12:41:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T12:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/295775\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T12:41:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T12:41:07","slug":"award-winning-limerick-musician-in-contention-for-prestigious-sean-o-riada-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/295775\/","title":{"rendered":"Award-winning Limerick musician in contention for prestigious Se\u00e1n \u00d3 Riada award"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">A LIMERICK student is one of 13 contestants from across the country competing to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.limerickleader.ie\/section\/236\/music\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">win<\/a> the prestigious Se\u00e1n O Riada Bonn \u00d3ir Competition. It&#8217;s a traditional music competition that focuses on a different instrument every year over a four-year cycle and this time features the metal reed instruments \u2013 the accordion, concertina, harmonica.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Pallasgreen native Ciar\u00e1n O&#8217;Connell is a Button Accordion player and an Uilleann Piper will compete at the event on Friday. Currently in his final year of study in the BA in Irish Music at the University of Limerick in the Irish World Academy of Music, he is also a member of rising band Alltacht.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Ciar\u00e1n is an accomplished performer, having toured in Egypt, America, England, Italy and Germany, and he also has two All Ireland titles to his name. Ciar\u00e1n is the Youth officer for Limerick Comhaltas, a member of the National Folk Orchestra of Ireland and teaches regularly with Craobh Pheig U\u00ed Riain CC\u00c9, Music Generation Tipperary and in his own private lessons.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The Se\u00e1n O Riada Bonn \u00d3ir Competition is due to take place in the Rochestown Park Hotel in Cork on Friday. There is an eclectic group of finalists in this year&#8217;s competition with competitors from all corners of Ireland and two musicians travelling from the US to take part in the final competition which will be broadcast live on RT\u00c9 Raidi\u00f3 na Gaeltachta.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.limerickleader.ie\/news\/local-news\/1989827\/limerick-music-legends-join-the-line-up-for-historic-3-arena-gig.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Limerick music legends join the line-up for historic 3 Arena gig<\/a><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The competition has been running since 2010\u00a0 and is renowned for attracting a large number of talented musicians from at home and abroad. It is organised by Peadar O Riada in part to bring together the listenership of his Cuireadh Chun Ceoil Programme broadcast on RT\u00c9 Raidi\u00f3 na Gaeltachta every Friday night. The judges this year are the well known concertina player Mary McNamara and accordion players Johnny \u00d3g Connolly and Danny O Mahony<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">There will be one overall prize for the metal reed winner with seven finalists in the concertina, seven finalists in the accordion and one playing harmonica. The winner will be presented with a bespoke Gold medal designed by Niamh Utsch, and a cash prize of \u20ac2,500. Event organiser and presenter Peadar \u00d3 Riada said that they&#8217;re &#8220;very pleased that the competition is going\u00a0from strength to strength with entrants from all over the world and two American\u00a0finalists in the competition this year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">He added that the standard is very high. &#8220;We are particularly happy to see\u00a0the younger generation attending the concert every year even when their own instrument doesn\u2019t feature they come back to meet up with each other and to\u00a0play in the music session afterwards, we look forward to hearing great music\u00a0again on the night.\u201d <\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Tickets for the event can be purchased at the door for \u20ac10 and those attending the concert can avail of a special room rate at the Rochestown Park Hotel on the night.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The competition will be broadcast live on RT\u00c9 Raidio na Gaeltachta and streamed online.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The event is sponsored by RnaG, Comhaltas, Gael Linn, IMRO,Rochestown Park Hotel and Iontaobhas F\u00f3dhla.<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A LIMERICK student is one of 13 contestants from across the country competing to win the prestigious Se\u00e1n&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[428,18,117,19,17,337,891,1181,21279],"class_list":{"0":"post-295775","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-competition","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-music","14":"tag-pallasgreen","15":"tag-rte","16":"tag-university-of-limerick"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115933143691589694","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}