Tommy Sands
The Ballad of a Songman

Saturday, May 30 | 8 pm

“Most gifted songwriter.” – The Irish Times

“Tommy Sands has achieved that difficult but wonderful balance between knowing and loving the traditions of his home and being concerned with the future of the whole world.” – Pete Seeger

“Sands is a true weaver of dreams and spells.” – Hot Press Magazine

"You feel you can trust the singer as well as the song…" – Seamus Heaney

"Tommy Sands…offers a more eloquent and expansive account of our awkward reality than any shelf load of academic analyses." –Eamonn McCann

County Down folk singer, song writer, and social activist Tommy Sands has achieved something akin to legendary status in his own lifetime. From the pioneering days with the highly influential Sands Family, he has developed into one of the most powerful songwriters and enchanting solo performers in Ireland today. His songwriting, which draws the admiration of Nobel Poet Laureate Seamus Heaney and father of folk music Pete Seeger, prompts Sing Out! to regard him as “the most powerful songwriter in Ireland, if not the rest of the world.”

Sands will perform an entertaining and deeply profound evening of song, music, poetry, prose, pictures, and humor. Drawn from his acclaimed memoir, The Songman, the performance portrays the Northern Ireland where he grew up, and where he still lives, writes and performs.