Martin & na Dorsa

Martin has been with na Dorsa, since there formation in the year 2000. Dorsa formed part of the musical representation of Ireland at Expo 2000 at Hanover, Germany which included the musicians Donal Lunny, Altan, Juliet Turner, The Saw Doctors, Dervish and Eleanor Shanley.

Within months of their formation they were playing Festivals such as Folkest ( Northern Italy's biggest Folk Festival).

Dranouter festival in Belgium, one of the biggest folk festivals in Europe and Tesserete festival in Switzerland were some of the next to succumb to Dorsa's powerful music. A tour of Germany in winter '01 saw them playing for thirty-one successive nights to audiences of up to 1000 people each night.

Dorsa featured in Ireland at Music Under The Mountains Festival in Co. Wicklow which also featured the Chieftains and Kila. They headlined the Johnnie Crampsie festival in Strabane, an honour previously bestowed upon groups of the calibre of Altan.

An extensive and exhaustive three week tour of the U.S. in March 2002 was followed by five concerts in Ulster. Off to England then for a week long tour where Dorsa headlined at the Gosport folk festival. Other spring dates included SNCF folk festival in Basel, Switzerland. Summer festivals included the Tommy Makem festival in June and Warwick in July .

Among more recent events were, the Ennis Trad weekend, Belfast Folk Festival, The William Kennedy International Piping festival which also featured Lúnasa and the Mc Donald Brothers, and a 10 day tour of England and Belgium.

Dorsa have received considerable air-play in Ireland and abroad and have been featured in a programme for the BBC2 series "Ceol i gCuideachta" on young Irish musicians.

The band have also made an appearance on the TG4 series Geanntrai and the Irish Traditional Music Magazine Award Winning Programme "Flosc" .

Their music is rooted in the bedrock of the musical traditions of the North of Ireland - from the compositions of Josephine Keegan and Brendan Mc Glinchey (Armagh) to the music of Donegal, Tyrone and Fermanagh, not to mention their delving into old collections from the said areas. But they do not neglect excursions to exotic locations such as Leitrim, Roscommon, Clare, Kerry and other places where great music is to be found.

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