This weekend we’re playing our last gig before embarking on our first tour of North America throughout June. We’ll be playing at the Isle of Man Cyclefest on Sunday from 4:15pm. This is likely to be our only gig on the Isle of Man this year, so it’ll be great to see some familiar faces there!

A few weeks after this we’ll be crossing the Atlantic for the first of three trips this year. We’ll be spending a month touring venues and festivals up and down the East coast of the USA, starting at the Mystic Seaport Festival in Conneticut, then gigs in Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maine, finishing at the Old Songs Festival in Altamont NY. Then straight after this we’ll be heading to what will possibly be our most northerly gig yet. We’re due to play at the Alianait festival in Iqaluit, Nunavut, one of the Northern territories of Canada.

Later in the year we’ll be returning to the States again to play at the well renowned Milwaukee Irish Festival in August. This is a one off visit to the USA just for the festival itself. But then we come back again in September for a few more festivals including ‘Celtic Classic‘ in Bethlehem Pennsylvania.

We’re extremely excited to be joining Mark Radcliffe next week to play a few tunes live in session on his BBC Radio 2 Folk Show! Tune in to BBC Radio 2 from 7pm on Wednesday 30th September, or catch it online (if you can) here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06cxcl7

Now in it’s 45th year, the Festival Interceltique de Lorient brings way over 800,000 people to it’s streets each year during a 10 day celebration of Interceltic music and culture. This year it was the Isle of Man and Cornwall who shared the title of highlighted nation, and highlighted they definitely were!

The prestigious band competition, the Trophée Loic Raison, has only been won by a Manx group twice beforein the festival’s 45 year history; once by Adam’s old band King Chiaullee in 2008, and once by Ruth Keggin‘s band Nish as Rish in 2011. This year both Barrule and Ruth had entered the competition amongst bands from Ireland, Scotland, Brittany and more. After a packed final on the Quai de la Bretagne stage, the Isle of Man came out on top with both Manx entries winning 1st and 2nd; this first time a nation has won both prizes in the festival’s history. What an honour it was to not only win the trophy, but also to be one of the two Manx bands in 1st and 2nd places!

We’re extremely excited to announce that our second album, Manannan’s Cloak, is now available to buy through our online shop and at all the normal online and high street retailers!

Reviews are flooding in, and we’re really pleased with the feedback that is coming back.

Thanks to everyone who helped us with the Kickstarter campaign, it’s really helped us to hit the ground running.

If you havent done so already, head on over to the online shop where you can buy the CD, downloads, and our new Barrule Tune Book.

To help us get the new album ready and promoted properly, we’ve set up a Kickstarter campaign to raise the final funds. In exchange for your donations, you’ll qualify for some exclusive goodies before the official album release date, including signed CDs, posters, T-Shirts and more. Take a look at the campaign to see what else is on offer, and to hear a track-by-track preview of the album! We’re extremely grateful for your support in reaching our target, and really excited to finally get the album out there!

Alongside the pending release of the new album Manannan’s Cloak, we’re pleased to announce our new venture into the world of high fidelity trad music streaming – Barrulify.

With the popularity of existing mainstream music services such as Spotify, Beats Music and now Tidal, we feel it’s about time that there was a streaming service for trad music fans. We’ve bought some web-hosting with unlimited space, bandwidth and everything, so should be good to go!

Once we’ve finished our Kickstarter project to help with the album funding, we’ll be launching another Kickstarter project to start funding Barrulify. It’s a really exciting prospect for us, and trad music fans all around the world!

Should Barrulify really lift off, then we’re also planning the release of our own brand of headphones, designed specifically for trad music. We feel that the recent trend of large over-ear headphones doesn’t really cater for trad music. So with our new Barrule range of even larger over ear headphones, you’ll be able to listen to your favourite trad music even louder, and look dead trendy.

It’s all systems go at Barrule HQ this month as the boys prepare to release the follow-up album to their 2012 award-winning, self-titled debut. It all kicks off with a launch concert at the Peel Centenary Centre on Saturday 11th April, exactly a month before the album is officially released into the wider world. This will be the first opportunity to buy a copy of Manannan’s Cloak, and tickets are now on sale for the concert, available online at https://barruletrio.com/tickets as well as in some of the usual shop outlets: Celtic Gold in Peel and Shakti Man in Ramsey. Tickets cost £10.00 each and you are advised to book early to avoid disappointment.

Recorded in December in the historic St. Bridget’s Chapel, in the Nunnery grounds, with producer Andy Seward at the helm, Manannan’s Cloak takes the trio’s emphatic sound to the next level, with guest performances from a support cast that boasts Paul McKenna on vocals, Calum Stewart on uilleann pipes, Dylan Fowler on lap steel and Tad Sargent on bodhrán, not to mention the homegrown talents of regular collaborators David Kilgallon (piano) and Gregory Joughin (vocals).

The lads had an absolute ball recording the album and now they can’t wait to get it heard! So if you fancy a sneak preview you can download the free single ‘The King of The Sea (Ree Ny Marrey)’, featuring Paul McKenna right now! Click here to download.

We’re very excited to announce that our hotly anticipated second album will be available soon! Over the next few days we will be announcing more details about the album, it’s release, and how you can get involved in order to get your hands on some exclusive goodies. But for the meantime, head on over to our FREE DOWNLOAD page to get a copy of the second track on the album – “The King Of The Sea (Ree Ny Marrey)”, featuring the fantastic Paul McKenna on lead vocals.

We’re very excited to be visiting Germany and the Netherlands next week – our first visit to Germany as a band! We’ll be playing a house concert in Overath on Wednesday the 18th, Müllenbach on Thursday 19th, Bad Honnef on Friday 20th and then Rotterdam on Saturday 21st February, before returning home.

Here’s a wee map of the 4 different gigs:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=z7ITXC7RKsqk.kgR36zkssuIs

We’ve been busy over December recording our second album. Those of you who have seen us playing recently will have heard some previews of the new material we’ve been working on. Well, the recording has finished, it’s been mixed, and will be due out later this year!

Keep checking our Facebook page and website, and you’ll be the first to know when it’s available.