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music · Friday 26 June 2026 · Various 
Traditional Irish Music Festival - Con Curtin Tribute
At Brosna Village · Brosna, Co. Kerry (Three Counties Meet)
At Brosna Village · Brosna, Co. Kerry (Three Counties Meet)
Every last weekend of June, the small North Kerry village of Brosna fills with fiddle music, lilting, workshop chatter and the kind of easy pub conversation that only happens when a community has been doing the same thing, together, for over two decades. The Con Curtin Traditional Music Festival is a three-day celebration of Sliabh Luachra trad music and a fond tribute to the man who kept that tradition alive through his years running a famous Irish music pub in Chelsea, London, and later back home in Brosna. It suits anyone who loves authentic trad - not the stage-managed kind - and visitors who want to feel genuinely welcomed into a festival that is run by the village for the love of it.
The festival runs from Friday 26 June to Sunday 28 June 2026. Friday night opens with a concert in the parish hall, typically from around 8pm, featuring a mix of local musicians and invited guests playing in the Sliabh Luachra style - the regional tradition of slides and polkas that Con Curtin himself represented.
Saturday is the workshop day. Tutors run morning and early afternoon sessions covering fiddle and other instruments, open to players at various levels. A slide and polka session follows in the afternoon, and a fiddle recital in the early evening gives a more formal showcase of the music Con Curtin loved. A traditional Mass on Saturday evening ties the community and musical strands together.
Sunday is the most open-air, family day. Busking competitions for children take place in the square in the early afternoon, followed by a set ceili from around 3pm - a proper dance session with a ceili band. Throughout the whole weekend, a pub trail runs across all the pubs in the village, with informal trad sessions spilling from one to the next. That is where the real music happens.
Brosna sits at the point where Kerry, Limerick and Cork meet - a genuinely remote spot in the Sliabh Luachra uplands. By car from Tralee, take the N21 east towards Abbeyfeale, then follow local roads south into Brosna; allow about an hour. From Limerick city the drive is similar in length via the N21. There is no bus service to Brosna itself, so a car or a lift is essential. Parking in the village is informal along the main street; at festival weekends locals manage this well, so follow the flow.
The area around Brosna is Sliabh Luachra country - bogland and hills on the Kerry-Limerick border with a musical tradition far bigger than its geography suggests. It is worth taking a slow drive through the wider area before or after the festival. There is more to see in Brosna and across Co. Kerry.
Heading to Brosna Village in Brosna? Kerry has plenty more to see. Read the Brosna area guide, find what else is on, and explore the towns and villages nearby.