This St. Patrick's Day weekend, The Burren will host 12 special variety dinner shows with traditional Irish jigs, stories and dancing.
The show has evolved from its origins. Ten years ago, The Burren owner Tommy McCarthy was playing the front room for a St. Patrick’s Day performance. The furniture had been pulled out of the Somerville pub to accommodate the crowd — but it didn’t feel right.
“Some people had Zimmer frames and some people had little babies,” McCarthy told Boston Public Radio on Wednesday.
To accommodate that diverse audience, McCarthy decided to start a show in the pub's back room where everyone could have a seat and soak in the music over dinner.
“So you pay $30, you watch us perform for an hour, and then you have your dinner and you get your shamrock cake and you have a good time,” he said.
The St. Paddy's Day variety shows will include performances from McCarthy, his wife Louise Costello, and other guests.
The Burren’s back room is no stranger to live music. McCarthy and Celtic music ambassador Brian O’Donovan put up a concert series there for over ten years. Brian O’Donovan passed away from brain cancer in October 2023, but The Burren concert series lives on as the Brian O’Donovan Legacy Series.
“Brian and Tommy kind of put the whole thing together,” said Lindsay O’Donovan, Brian’s wife. “The series just kind of grew and became a wonderful … regular thing.”
Lindsay O’Donovan and McCarthy performed traditional Irish music on Boston Public Radio, including the song “Fanny Power.” The song was composed by harpist Turlough O’Carolan who traveled around Ireland in the 1700s playing music for the wealthy. This particular tune was composed for the wedding of Francis Power.
Before Lindsay O’Donovan took up her place behind the piano on the Boston Public Radio set, a memory dawned on her.
“‘Fanny Power’ was actually our wedding processional,” she said. “This is, like, incredible.”
Watch the performance on Boston Public Radio:
