The Anglo-Celt 2025 Arts Review- Grainne Conaty

Grainne Conaty

Ambient Music Showcase

Best Cavan event: Cavan Arts Festival is playing an important role in Cavan. It patches the quilts between those who might not engage with the arts in Cavan or know much about it, with the large cohort of creative people in our magical county. We come together and celebrate the wonder of creativity.

One to watch: Indigos Ego’s music spans a mix of genres, with honest, relatable stories that pick you up at the front door and bring you for a spin. Their melancholic rock songs pull you in emotionally and make you want to move and groove. Front woman Annie captures your attention with a voice that chats to you when she sings. Indigos Ego are both wise and wild, and fiercely passionate. Excited to watch their future unfold.

Best TV: Watching ‘The Good Karma Hospital’ at the moment, it is a joy, set in India featuring a female doctor who leaves the UK to try and figure her life out. The colours, soundtrack, accents and scenery is breathtaking. A trip to India in the next few years could be on the cards.

Best music: Lisa O’Neill is still quietly knocking it out of the park, having her rawly formed music finely placed in ‘House of Guinness’ drama series. Also, Wunderhorse’s painfully raw lyrics are beautiful with a heavy dirty sound, they left nothing behind.

Best theatre: Shane Carroll and Pádraig McIntyre performing ‘Shay Mouse’ at Cavan Arts Festival was pure joy and entertainment. Child friendly, imaginative and funny.

Best podcast: Michael Harding wins, hands down. I learned a great deal about my own spirituality, how to understand it and express it from listening to this humble man.

With his soothing Cavan come Leitrim accent, he talks about the trees in a way that I might think about them.