The Henry Girls return to An Grianán for first time in more than three years

The Henry Girls are returning to perform in An Grianán Theatre this weekend for the first time in more than three years.

The three McLaughlin sisters from Malin are playing at Letterkenny venue as part of their marking the 20th anniversary of their first album.

The show comes with the sisters in the middle of recording their eighth album,  A Time To Grow, which they have been working on at  Attica Audio Recording studios in Termon with Donegal musician, producer and one-time Villagers guitarist, Tommy McLaughlin.

Karen, Lorna and Joleen sold out Carndonagh's Colgan Hall earlier this year to mark the anniversary of the release of their first album, Between Us, which they see as the beginning of the band's career.

As well as featuring some songs from the new album, Saturday’s concert will also be a retrospective on their career to date which as well as releasing seven albums, has seen them tour extensively and become a regular sound on Irish national radio.

The performance will be their first at An Grianán since February 2020, when they launched their live album Shout Sister Shout, which was just weeks before Covid-19 restrictions played havoc with live music.

“We always love playing in An Grianán - we know all the staff, we know all the people and it is just such a lovely place to go,” Lorna says. 

“It’s just such a lovely theatre. It is relaxed. It is quite big but it also feels quite intimate.”

The three sisters have maintained close connections with their local area over the 20 years since they decided to make a go of a full-time music career together. All three teach and take part in community music projects.

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One venture all three have been involved in is the Inishowen Traditional Music Project, which performed to a sold-out National Concert Hall in front of President Michael D Higgins in January.

Out of that project, Lorna has helped put together the all-new Inishowen Community Trad Choir, which will perform on Saturday night from a repertoire of  Inishowen songs arranged by Derry-based musician and composer Neil Burns.

Lorna conducts the choir, which is run by the Inishowen Traditional Singing Circle. Following the National Concert Hall performance, there was a desire from some of the singers involved to carry on.

 “The choir was formed for that project but then within that, there were people who wanted to continue singing - so we decided to keep going. It sounds amazing and it's a great group of singers. It’s really, really nice and I have always enjoyed working with choirs. We are delighted that people will get to hear the choir and the lovely local music from Inishowen arranged really well.”

Saturday’s performance marks the beginning of a busy few months for The Henry Girls which will see them play the Cambridge Folk Festival, Milwaukee Irish Fest, Kansas City Irish Fest and tour Austria and Germany.

They will also have their annual Home With The Henry Girls residency in Malin during the Earagail Arts Festival in July.

“We are really starting to get out [and perform] a bit more and we have got a couple of really nice festivals that we have been invited to. They are really prestigious festivals and it is really nice to be included in the line-ups.”

The Henry Girls play An Grianan Theatre in Letterkenny on Saturday, May 13 at 8pm.