Dublin folk singer Macdara Yeates plays the Kitchen Garden Cafe in Birmingham for the album launch of 'Mudlark Ballads'.
Macdara Yeates plays the Kitchen Garden Cafe (B14 7SA) on Tuesday 1 December, part of his Mudlark Ballads album launch tour. He's a Dublin folk singer, and this is one of the dates he's taking the new record across the UK.
Mudlark Ballads came out on 4 September and is built from forgotten street songs he found in the National Library of Ireland archives. It includes the first commercial recordings of 'De May Bush' and 'De Kilmainham Minit' — songs that had been tucked away in the archives rather than sung on stage. If you're into the older, less-heard side of folk, that's exactly what he's bringing to the set.
This isn't his first record, either. His debut, Traditional Singing from Dublin, came out in 2024 and made a bit of a splash: it landed a spot on MOJO magazine's Top 10 Folk Albums of the Year and picked up two RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards nominations. Before that, he was part of the trad ensemble Skipper's Alley from 2013 to 2017. In 2012 he co-founded 'The Night Larry Got Stretched', a monthly singing session that became a gathering place for young traditional singers — names like Lisa O'Neill, Ye Vagabonds and Lankum have all come through it. So while Mudlark Ballads is the new thing he's touring, he's been around the Dublin trad scene for a while.
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Tickets start from £22.00, and the gig is on Tuesday 1 December at the Kitchen Garden Cafe in B14.
