Songs of Travel and Of Home: Recital for the Church of Ireland Restoration Fund

What to Expect

Baritone Pascal Kennedy and pianist Sophie Ward give an afternoon art song recital at St Brendan’s Church of Ireland on Oxmantown Mall, with all proceeds going to the church’s restoration fund. The centrepiece is Vaughan Williams’ song cycle Songs of Travel, set to poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, paired with a group of Irish art songs. The Irish half of the programme takes in settings by Herbert Hughes and Thomas Moore and texts by W.B. Yeats and James Joyce.

The recital is programmed as part of National Heritage Week, which runs from 15 to 23 August 2026, and the setting is part of the point: St Brendan’s stands at the head of Oxmantown Mall, the Georgian street that runs from the church down to the Birr Castle gates. A voice and piano recital in that building is an unusually intimate way to spend a Sunday afternoon, and at €15 with children admitted free it is one of the cheaper tickets of the Birr music week.

Good to Know

• Date and time: Sunday 16 August 2026 at 3pm.
• Venue: St Brendan’s Church of Ireland, Oxmantown Mall, Birr.
• Tickets: €15 plus booking fee. Children go free.
• Booking through Birr Festival of Music on Ticketsolve, or ask at the door subject to availability.
• Beneficiary: the Church of Ireland Restoration Fund.
• Part of the Birr Festival of Music August concert series, which closes with the European Medical Students’ Orchestra and Choir on 18 August.

Getting There

Oxmantown Mall is in the centre of Birr, running between Emmet Square and the entrance to Birr Castle Demesne, so the church is an easy walk from anywhere in town. Birr is reached on the N52 from Tullamore and Nenagh and the N62 from Roscrea. Free and paid parking is available around Emmet Square and on the streets nearby, and Sunday afternoon is one of the quieter times to find a space. There is no railway station in Birr, so come by car or by regional bus.