Síle Denvir is a sean-nós singer and harpist who is deeply influenced by her upbringing in the west of Ireland Connemara Gaeltacht. A native Irish speaker, her singing is very much rooted in the ancient style of sean-nós or old-style Gaelic singing, and she has the ability to make the local global through her ethereal performance style.
As well as being a solo artist Síle has collaborated with some of the finest musicians in Irish music. She is a founding member of the group Líadan, she has toured with The Chieftains and recent performances include collaborations with Barry Kerr, Liam Ó Maonlaí, Martin Hayes and Úna Monaghan.
Other performance highlights include singing as part of Mícheál Ó Suilleabháin’s composition Fill Arís with Iarla Ó Lionáird, Lillis Ó Laoire and The RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra. Síle is a regular contributor to various TV and radio programmes and she presented the programmes ‘Sean-Nós’, ‘Fleadh TV’ and ‘Ceol ó Kylemore’ on TG4, Ireland’s Irish language television network. She is also music director for ‘Bláth na hÓige’, an exciting new series that showcases the talents of young sean-nós singers from various Gaeltacht areas.
Síle has a deep passion for Irish language song, and through her work as an academic at Dublin City University she has honed her knowledge of this song tradition to the highest level, giving her performances an extra layer of depth and understanding. She has published two books on songwriters from Connemara, Tom a’ tSeoighe: Amhráin (2020) and Ciarán Ó Fátharta: Amhráin (2008), and numerous articles on aspects of the Irish song tradition.
She has a particular interest in combining her academic and creative work and recent artistic research projects include the production of a series of videos of Tom a’ tSeoighe’s songs (Molscéal TG4 2020) and a CD/Booklet called Caithréim (Cló Iar-Chonnacht 2016) based on the music and song from the plays of Patrick Pearse. The CD was shortlisted by The Irish Times in the highly competitive ‘Best Traditional Album 2016’ category and won an award for best traditional album at Gradam Nós 2017.
She was recently named Amhránaí na Bliana (singer of the year) in the prestigious TG4 Gradam Ceoil and her most recent album ‘Anamnesis’, a recording of sean-nós songs in collaboration with producer John Reynolds and cellist Caroline Dale, will be released on 31st March 2023.
