The very essence of a house concert is the intimacy between performer and audience; when that performer is Liam Ó Maonlaí, the experience is like a heady whirlwind romance.

Thanks to Gabriel Donohue and Marian Makins, who are the architects and hosts behind the Barn Star concert series, and a mutual friend who set up the concert, this past Wednesday night brought Liam Ó Maonlaí and fellow Hothouse Flowers band mate Peter O’Toole to Philadelphia for a spectacular evening of music. To be among a limited crowd of 50, seated in a living room around a beautiful baby grand piano, listening to these two brilliant musicians play for three hours, is a singularly memorable event.

The concert is one of only a few that Ó Maonlaí is performing this trip. His focus has been the Dakota Nation Unity Ride, an event that began in July and is bringing Native Americans from as far away as Canada on horseback and in canoes to New York for an observance of peace and healing. The gathering continues throughout this weekend, and information can be found here, at the website of the Unity Ride.

For Ó Maonlaí, who is so passionate about Irish heritage, and culture, and the preservation of the Irish language, listening to his stories is as much a part of the experience as hearing the music. Before singing an original, as gaeilge version of “Carrickfergus,” he spoke of  his own awakening to music through a tape of Seán Ó Riada’s: “The language and the land and the music and the people and the work–it all dances in front of you…Seán Ó Riada realized that it’s the roots. The roots go on. And they go down and then you go forward…So that’s what we had at home. That was my introduction to a band and an audience, on this little tape. The rest of the stuff, it just seeped in through osmosis. When I was about 10, I started to play the whistle and these tunes were already in me, so they just came out through the holes.”

For which we, who were in attendance Wednesday night, are eternally grateful. Here is where you can see Liam Ó Maonlaí’s version of “Carrickfergus” captured on video  and also “Cailleach an Airgid” (“The Hag with the Money”), performed by Liam and Peter.

Here are a few photos from the evening.