S3 Ep6: Adèle Commins and Daithí Kearney with Kayla Rush

Musicologist Dr Adèle Commins is Head of Department of Creative Arts, Media and Music at Dundalk Institute of Technology. Her PhD from Maynooth University focused on the music of Irish-born composer Sir Charles Villiers Stanford. Her recordings include contributions to an album of Irish piano accordion music released by Comhaltas in 2014 and vocal soloist on an album by Irish composer Sr Marie Dunne in 2015. She also contributes music in two local churches. Her recent research includes critically documenting the music of Co. Louth céilí bands from the mid-twentieth century. Her compositions featured in the seminal publications Tunes from the Women (2023) and some have been recorded by Cork-based Ceolta Sí (2020).

Ethnomusicologist and geographer Dr Daithí Kearney is co-director of the Creative Arts Research Centre at Dundalk Institute of Technology, where he lectures in music, theatre and tourism. His PhD from University College Cork examined the geographies of Irish traditional music. An All-Ireland champion musician, he has toured and recorded as a musician, singer and dancer with a number of groups including Siamsa Tíre, The National Folk Theatre of Ireland, and performed for President Obama in The White House. He recorded the critically acclaimed album Midleton Rare with accordion player John Cronin in 2012 and continues to tour regularly. He wrote and produced the musical To Stay or Leave (2005, 2015) and his compositions have been recorded by groups including Nuada (2004) and Ceolta Sí (2020). As a composer, he has received commissions funded by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltachts and Cork County Council.

Both Commins and Kearney have published extensively on music including contributions to the Companion to Irish Traditional Music and the Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland . In 2017 they released an album A Louth Lilt, featuring their own compositions, and produced the documentary The Road to Speyfest in 2016. International tours including North and South America, France, Scotland, Norway and England. They have composed and arranged a number of pieces for the Oriel Traditional Orchestra, of which they are musical directors. In 2024, they were commissioned by Louth County Council to compose the score for a music theatre production Brigid, Lady of Light for the 1500 celebrations of St Brigid in Co. Louth.


Dr Kayla Rush is an assistant lecturer in music at Dundalk Institute of Technology. An anthropologist of art, music, and performance, her current research examines private, fee-paying rock music schools in global perspective. She previously held a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship, supporting ethnographic research with Rock Jam, a private music education organisation in Ireland. Her work has appeared in Borderlands, Liminalities, Feminist Anthropology, Journal of Popular Music Education, and IASPM Journal, among others. She is the author of The Cracked Art World: Conflict, Austerity, and Community Arts in Northern Ireland (Berghahn, 2022). She is also a recognized teacher and practitioner of creative ethnography, with a particular interest in ethnographic science fiction.