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music · Sunday 28 June 2026 · 7:30pm 
Conor McGinty: Echoes of Ireland
At Millennium Forum · Newmarket Street, Derry, Co. Derry
At Millennium Forum · Newmarket Street, Derry, Co. Derry
Conor McGinty brings his show Echoes of Ireland to the Millennium Forum on Sunday 28 June 2026 - a concert built around a century of Irish music and the stories that music carries. McGinty, who is from Derry, frames the evening as a journey through the songs that shaped Irish life: the melodies tied to struggle, emigration, memory and celebration. If you have any interest in Irish song performed with real theatrical ambition, this is the kind of night that rewards the effort of getting a ticket.
The staging concept is quietly striking. McGinty plays a man from Derry sitting in his granny’s front living room with a box of letters at his side. Each letter tells a different story from his great-grandparents and grandparents - what they lived through, what they witnessed, what they passed down. The music grows out of those stories, tying familiar Irish songs to specific moments in the past century.
The show is described as a concert interspersed with dramatic interludes, so it moves between song and spoken narrative rather than running straight through a setlist. A full live band performs on stage under the musical direction of Eamon Karran on piano, with Ramon Ferguson on guitar, Paddy Nixon on bass, guitar and whistle, Isobel Caldwell on harp, guitar and backing vocals, Stephen Caldwell on drums, and Erin Carlin and Monica Nixon providing additional vocals. It is a proper production, not a solo acoustic set.
Tickets are £22.50 and are available through the Millennium Forum box office and website at millenniumforum.co.uk.
Derry sits on the A6 from Belfast (roughly an hour’s drive) and on the N13/A5 from Donegal town (around 45 minutes). Translink operates regular bus and rail services from Belfast - the journey by rail to Derry is around 90 minutes. Bus Eireann connects from Dublin via Letterkenny and Lifford, though journey times are long; the train from Dublin to Belfast with an onward connection is the more practical option for southern travellers.
The Millennium Forum is on Newmarket Street in the city centre, close to the walled city and within easy walking distance of Foyle Street Bus Station. Pay-and-display car parks are available on the city’s inner streets, and there is a multi-storey at Foyleside Shopping Centre a short walk away.
Derry’s walled city is one of the best-preserved in Europe and the Bogside murals are a short walk from the Millennium Forum - either makes for a worthwhile evening stroll before the show. If you are staying over, the Saturday night atmosphere along the quays is reliably good. There is more to see in Derry and across Co. Derry.
Heading to Millennium Forum in Derry? Derry has plenty more to see. Read the Derry area guide, find what else is on, and explore the towns and villages nearby.