Shane, from Lavagh, County Sligo – just outside Tubbercurry – grew up in a family steeped in traditional music. An immensely gifted musician, Shane has been teaching traditional guitar at the South Sligo Summer School for many years. He is very much in demand for his accompaniment skills and features on a wide range of recordings including ‘Hurry the Jug’, the much acclaimed album released in the summer of 2019, which also features uilleann pipes tutor Leonard Barry and fiddle tutor Declan Folan.

Seamie O’Dowd was brought up by parents steeped in the musical traditions of South Sligo. His mother, Sheila, was a highly respected musician and teacher whose father and brothers all played fiddle, while his father, Joe, was renowned as a fiddle player among musicians and music lovers worldwide. Seamie himself began playing fiddle at about eight years of age. Highly sought after as a session and recording musician, Seamie has travelled the world with his music and has a broad catalogue of recordings to his name. He has been a tutor at the South Sligo Summer School on a regular basis since its beginnings in the late 1980s, teaching fiddle for six of its first seven years and teaching traditional guitar since the mid 2000s up to the present day.