The Last Céilí
A live céilíplay for three women about how culture survives, set on the last night before they leave famine Ireland.
Around a kitchen table, through song, tune and spoken word, they call back the life they are about to lose: courtship, boldness, laughter, hunger, fear, and the slow tightening of necessity.
Letters from America bring news of wages, work and another possible life, until the force of leave taking begins to rise through the music of the night.
The work is not principally about famine. It is about how culture survives.
Part céilí and part play, it draws on historical accounts, archive voices, traditional songs and tunes.
It is a distinct new work growing from Lisa’s NightVisiting research and performance practice, first commissioned by Ireland’s National Famine Museum in 2022.
Set in rural Ireland during Black ’47, the work asks not only what famine took from Ireland, but what the people who left carried with them: songs, stories, tunes, language, humour, faith, memory and ways of gathering. These traditions took root abroad and continued to shape Ireland in return.
Songs and stories of loss and leaving break open into tunes, dance and moments of fierce, unruly joy.
The production is currently in development for international touring from 2027. We are speaking with theatres, festivals, universities and cultural organisations about presentation, residency, audience engagement and co production partnerships.
About the Show
Synopsis
The Last Céilí is a new 90 minute music theatre event for three women, drawing on historical accounts, archive voices, traditional songs and tunes to tell a story of famine, departure and survival. It is led by singer, actor, writer and folklorist Lisa Lambe, with East Clare concertina player and singer Eva Carroll, and Dublin fiddle player and sean nós dancer Caoimhe Ní Mhaolagáin.
Set in rural Ireland during Black ’47, the piece begins on the night before emigration. Three young women gather around a long kitchen table for one last céilí. A last spree. An American Wake. By morning, they will leave the house, the fields, the neighbours, the graves of their family, and the life that made them.
From this simple theatrical frame, the work opens into three interwoven movements: the pressure to leave, the crossing, and the first hard choices of life abroad. These are carried through scene, song, testimony and direct address rather than literal reconstruction. At its centre is a simple but difficult act: the women choose to go together. They will not scatter. They will not leave one of their own behind.
The Last Céilí is carried primarily through music. Approximately 80 percent of the performance is made up of songs and tunes, with concise spoken text used to frame the history, turn the story and give the women their distinct voices. The performers move between character, narrator, witness and musician. At times they are the young women inside the story. At times they turn out to the audience and speak the hard facts on which the story sits.
The production draws on the céilí as a deeply rooted Irish and Gaelic social form where song, story, music and dance meet. This tradition is held in the performers’ own practice: Lisa’s work in folklore, song and theatre; Eva’s East Clare concertina style and traditional singing; and Caoimhe’s fiddle playing, sean nós dance and inherited Dublin music culture. Songs and stories of loss, longing and departure break open into tunes, dances and moments of fierce, unruly joy.
The production plays in and around a 20 foot kitchen table. Microphones and live looping allow three performers to build layered sound in real time, creating the drive and lift of a much larger céilí band while keeping the raw immediacy of three women sharing story and music in front of an audience.
In the final 20 minutes, the performance opens into a live céilí led by the three women. The audience is drawn into the social energy of the gathering as story, testimony and farewell become a shared act of music, movement and survival. The degree of participation will be shaped with each presenter according to the venue, audience and local context.
The Last Céilí is vivid, tourable and adaptable across a range of venues and contexts. It is not a heritage presentation. It is a contemporary live event in which music, testimony, theatre and communal dance illuminate a story of women’s endurance, migration and collective memory.
NightVisiting
The Last Céilí has grown from several years of research, performance and artistic enquiry through Lisa Lambe’s NightVisiting project, originally commissioned by the National Famine Museum in Strokestown, County Roscommon.
Since 2022, NightVisiting has been presented across Ireland, the United States and the United Kingdom, bringing audiences into an intimate world of songs, tunes, folklore, emigration stories and forgotten ballads.
Lisa’s work with the National Folklore Collection and the Irish Traditional Music Archive created the foundation for a deeper enquiry into famine era departure, women’s experience and the rituals of leave taking.
The Last Céilí is a distinct new work. It extends the research and performance method of NightVisiting into a larger dramatic form for three performers.
Why this story now
The Great Irish Famine emptied houses. It did not empty Irish culture.
The people who left carried songs, tunes, stories, language, humour, faith, political memory and ways of gathering. Those traditions took root in Canada, the United States and elsewhere. They were sustained and transformed by the diaspora and, over generations, helped shape Ireland in return.
The Last Céilí begins at the moment that exchange starts: the final gathering before departure.
Rooted in a specific history, the work speaks to contemporary questions of migration, belonging, cultural inheritance and the ways communities survive profound disruption.
A small selection of songs and tunes
This recording demonstrate the vocal and musical practice underpinning the work. They are development materials, captured from the first table reading of the project. They are not extracts from the finished production.
Rooted in testimony
The Last Céilí draws on eyewitness accounts, letters, songs, folklore and historical testimony from the famine years. These voices are not used as background. They shape the emotional and dramatic world of the performance. The research draws on the National Folklore Collection, the Irish Traditional Music Archive, contemporary reports and accounts of migration and leave taking. Further source material is available as part of the project’s research archive.
"A mother, herself in fever, was seen the same day to drag out the corpse of her child, a girl about twelve, perfectly naked, and leave it half covered with stones. In another house, within 500 yards of the cavalry station at Skibbereen, the dispensary doctor found seven wretches lying, unable to move under the same cloak, one had been dead for many hours, but the others were unable to move themselves or the corpse."
“A poor forlorn girl, hearing that her mother was seized with cholera, hastened to the rescue, alas! too late, but with a deep religious and filial devotion, desiring at least a decent interment for her dear departed parent, was driven to the shocking necessity of carrying the corpse upon her own back for three long miles to this very union, so that she might make her wants known, and simply obtain a coffin from the relieving officer."
Presentation details
Running time
Approximately 90 minutes
Touring company
Five people: Lisa Lambe, Eva Carroll, Caoimhe Ní Mhaolagáin, Graham McLaren as director and company manager, and one touring technician. Michael Mushalla leads North American booking and presenter relations but is not part of the travelling company.
Form
Live music theatre with spoken text, song, puppetry and direct address
As the evening progresses, a small number of audience members may be invited to join the women at the table for brief moments, receiving a letter, a testimony or a short spoken text to read aloud, and becoming part of the gathering itself. This is not a participatory format in the usual sense, but an extension of the céilí’s shared social space.
Music
Music is the dramatic engine of The Last Céilí. Traditional songs and tunes do not sit beside the story. They drive it. The show is built through the relationship between voice, fiddle, concertina and rhythm, moving from the energy of a final communal gathering into longing, pressure, parting and release. Live looping allows three performers to create layered sound and a wider musical world while keeping the event immediate and human.
Staging
Designed for flexibility, playing in and around a modular 20 foot kitchen table with microphones and live looping. The table may be constructed or sourced locally to an agreed specification. The work is suited to proscenium and studio theatres as well as non traditional playing spaces.
Technical approach
The company anticipates touring with a compact sound, looping and lighting package designed for small and medium scale venues. This will be supplemented by each presenter’s equipment and infrastructure where required.
Venue types
Theatres, festivals, university settings, museums, heritage sites and civic spaces
Scale
Intimate in means, with the energy and sound of a larger céilí band
Audience engagement
In some settings, a small number of audience members may be invited briefly into the social space of the gathering. Any participation will be clear, contained and shaped with the presenter in advance.
Development pathway
2023 to 2025
The Last Céilí has grown out of several years of research, performance and artistic enquiry through Lisa Lambe’s Nightvisiting project. That earlier work, shaped through archive material, song, folklore and lived testimony, created the foundation for a deeper exploration of famine, departure, women’s voices and the rituals of leave taking.
2025 to 2026
The new work is in active development through archival research, music exploration, text development and dramaturgical shaping. A work in progress presentation will take place during the Edinburgh Festival in August 2026 for invited presenters and partners.
Autumn 2026
A creation residency in Ireland is planned, focusing on final running order, musical structure, staging language and technical footprint. Small audience sharings will test pacing, clarity and intimacy.
From 2027
International presentation is planned from 2027,
Audience engagement and partnership
Alongside performance, The Last Céilí can support selected presenter and partner activity shaped to local context, resources and audience need. This may include artist talks, workshops, conversations around migration and memory, and story gathering with community, archive or heritage partners.
Interactive Workshops
To support the main performances, we can offer practical workshops in traditional Irish singing, music, and storytelling. These sessions can be tailored for community choirs, student groups, local musicians, or mixed public participants. Depending on the presenter’s needs, workshops can focus on song interpretation and vocal style, ornamentation and phrasing, narrative craft, or the relationship between story and melody. Workshops can be delivered as a single session, a short series during a residency or an open masterclass. Where useful, the content can connect directly to the songs, stories and source material within the production.
Special Event Hosting
To support the main performances, we can also offer private performances of selected music from the show in a venue of your choice. These can be informal and close range, designed for small groups such as donors, board members, partners, or key community stakeholders. The format can be music only, or music with a short conversation about the project, the source material, and the local participation strands. These moments can take place off site, in a private home, a cultural space, a university setting, or a civic venue, depending on what best suits your relationships. Any additional performance or private event will be subject to separate agreement, scheduling and appropriate artist fees.
Family Letters and Stories
In each host city we will reach out to Irish diaspora networks, working with the Irish Embassy and Consulates and with local Irish cultural organisations. We will invite people to share family stories, letters, photographs, and small details of emigration and arrival. With permission, these stories can be used as part of the lead up to the performance, helping the local audience see their own city and its Irish history inside the work. The longer term aim is to build a digital online resource that reflects the audience stories of the many people who have experienced the show.
Local Conversation Podcast
In selected host cities, where partnerships and resources allow, the company and presenter may work with Irish cultural organisations, archives and diaspora networks to invite local stories, letters and photographs connected with migration and arrival. Each episode will explore the wake tradition, and how it shaped community life in the 18th and 19th centuries, especially in the context of emigration. Where relevant, we will widen the lens to include other communities and cultures with comparable leave taking rituals, so the project speaks beyond Irish experience while staying rooted in it. Ahead of selected engagements, the company may record a short conversation with a local historian, artist or representative of the Irish diaspora community.
Team
The Last Céilí is led by performer, singer, writer and folklorist Lisa Lambe and theatre director, writer and designer Graham McLaren, in collaboration with a small team of musicians and makers. Together they bring extensive experience across music, theatre, folklore, new writing, touring production and live performance.
Lisa Lambe
Irish singer, actor and folklorist. The Irish Times called her “the finest singer and actor of her generation.” A leading presence at the Abbey and the Gate. International concerts at Radio City New York, Red Rocks and Glastonbury. Central to the global success of Celtic Woman with Grammy and Emmy nominations and six Billboard World Artist of the Year awards. Creator of the Nightvisiting series, a work shaped by her recent MA in Irish Folklore and inspired by her work with the ITMA and National Folklore Collection, UCD. First commissioned by the National Famine Museum, Strokestown Park in 2022, Nightvisiting has since been presented at , Liverpool Irish Festival, Glór, TradFest , The Séamus Ennis Arts Centre, Clifden Arts & West Cork Music Festivals and the Irish Cultural Centre, London.
Eva Carroll
Eva Carroll is a concertina player and singer from Feakle, East Clare. She learned concertina from Mary McNamara, developing the relaxed, swinging East Clare style, and has also been influenced by Cormac Begley. Raised by singers Paula Carroll and Brian O’Rourke, she began singing sean nós and traditional songs in English, often in harmony with her mother. Now based in Dublin, she performs with Méabh Mulligan, Jayne Pomplas and Patrick Stefan, and has collaborated with Seán Lyons, Len Collective and DUG. She has appeared at the Frank Harte Festival, Drogheda Traditional Music and Singing Weekend, Concertina Cruinniú, Feakle Festival, Electric Picnic and Temple Bar Tradfest, with performances in Sweden, France, Scotland and Osaka. She now plays with SexyTadhg’s band.
Caoimhe Ní Mhaolagáin
Caoimhe Ní Mhaolagáin is a Dublin musician, fiddle player and self taught sean nós dancer from the Mulligan family, a five generation traditional music dynasty linked to The Cobblestone, one of Dublin’s best known homes for live Irish music. Rooted in inherited practice but shaped by her own percussive style, she performs, teaches and makes work across music, dance and Irish language culture. She founded Ceol ’s Cos, offering sean nós classes and workshops across Ireland. Her credits include TG4 projects and appearances with Preab Meadar, whose work joins voice, fiddle and dance through ancient Gaelic poetic metres. In 2025 she represented Ireland at Expo Japan. In 2026 she teaches and performs at Milwaukee Irish Fest and Orvieto Irish Fleadh.
Graham McLaren
Graham McLaren has three decades of work across Europe, North America and Australia. He served as Artistic Director and Chief Executive of the Abbey Theatre, Ireland’s national theatre, from 2016 to 2021, and earlier as Associate Director at the National Theatre of Scotland. He founded Theatre Babel in 1994 and led the renewal of Perth Theatre from 2004 to 2008. His productions have been seen at International Festivals, and National Theatres across the globe. He has created more than 80 productions across four continents.
Michael Mushalla
Michael Mushalla is an internationally recognised creative producer, artist manager and agent based in the United States Virgin Islands. In a classic mail room to board room trajectory, he began at Columbia Artists Management Inc. in 1981, later serving as Vice President and as a member of the Board of Directors for more than a decade. In 1998 he founded Double M Arts & Events, LLC, which he continues to lead today. Across a long international career, he has represented and produced work with major artists and organisations including the Mark Morris Dance Group, the Abbey Theatre, the National Theatre of Scotland, Scott Silven, Vox Motus. From scale as broad as one man performances by Al Pacino, to The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Michael is an active member of the International Society for the Performing Arts, North American Performing Arts Managers and Agents, and the Western Arts Alliance.
Testimonials
Professor Declan Kiberd
Writer and ScholarLisa’s show goes to the essence of Irish culture - convivial, mystical, immersive. It combines soft melody with cutting realism and brings an audience through a vast range of emotions; tenderness, friendship, solitude and above all darkness breaking into light.
Professor P.J. Mathews
Director, UCD Creative Futures Academy School of English, Drama and Film, University College Dublin, Ireland. - CopyI was lucky enough to see a performance of Lisa Lambe's Nightvisiting in the enchanting surroundings of Kylemore Abbey, Co. Galway in August 2025. Informed by her meticulous research in UCD's National Folklore Collection, Lisa brings her insights as an artist and captivating power as a performer to conjure an extraordinary night at the theatre. This show has the power to reimagine our song and storytelling traditions for a new generation.
Liadh Ní Riada
Stiúirtheoir, Ionad Cultúrtha Baile Mhúirne, Co. ChorcaíWatching this work was an extraordinary experience. Hearing it in Irish and English seemed to carry us through time, connecting us to stories from long ago that still resonate today, and to a real sense of togetherness, community and spirit.
Des Lally
Director, Clifden Arts FestivalI think the concept of the show was in the tradition of the great literary revival, combining music, folklore and story, drawing on the heritage of Yeats and Synge, and bringing a new life, almost a new slant, to the idea of a literary, artistic and musical revival. It carried these stories to a new generation, and expressed these thoughts through music, dialogue and speech in a way that felt both balanced and sublime. A beautiful experience.