East Of Monroe does Dublin

East Of Monroe, a bluegrass band based in Maryland and northern Virginia, is currently on tour in Ireland. They have promised to send along something of a travelogue of their experiences, and here is the second installment.

Hello from beautiful Dublin, Ireland, where we’ve been taking a short break in our tour to take in the sights! On Sunday evening, we played the Red Room, a warm and welcoming music space in Cookstown. Our hosts, Arnie and Sharon, lovingly hand-built this beautiful, cozy venue for house concerts on their property. It was so cozy, in fact, that Wally quickly discovered he needed to remove his boots to gain fiddle bow clearance from the low ceiling! He played the majority of the set in his sock feet, garnering several laughs from the enthusiastic crowd.

It was a wonderful night, and we were thrilled to have another sold-out show! Here’s a video of one of Gary Alan Ferguson’s original tunes from the Red Room:

From there, we packed up and headed to Dublin, where we’ve spent the past couple of days enjoying some downtime before our next round of tour dates. We spent Monday evening shopping for records and exploring the city’s incredible food. Yesterday, we visited the Trinity College library and the Book of Kells before grabbing our instruments and visiting a bluegrass jam!

The Dublin Bluegrass Collective hosts a weekly event at Dublin’s original late-night music venue, Sin É, and we were so excited to take part! Jamming with so many talented Irish musicians was a definite highlight of our trip so far. We had a fabulous time swapping tunes, instruments, and stories with folks of all ages and backgrounds. Bluegrass is certainly alive and well here in Dublin!

As we write this post, we are moving on towards Ireland’s west coast, preparing for our next show at the famous Matt Malloy’s Pub in Westport. We’ll be performing there on Thursday, April 12th – and at two other venues around the Emerald Isle before we wind up our tour.

For information about these and other dates, visit our website and Facebook; for more of our adventures along the way, you’re welcome to follow along with us on Instagram and Twitter!