TOMMY SANDS
To book TOMMY SANDS to appear at your event ...
contact John Barrow or +44(0)7968 13 17 37
FORTHCOMING DATES … 2024 and 2025
Visit Tommy's website for gigs in the UK and abroad in which Stoneyport is not directly involved, and other information about Tommy.
The tour dates in March-April 2025 are broadly divided into Scotland (March 3 to 14) and then the rest of the UK (Wed 19 March to Sun 13 April)
MARCH 2024
Mon 3 Stirling FC
Tue 4 available
Wed 5 Irvine FC
Thu 6 to Tue 11 available
Wed 12 Edinburgh tbc
Thu 13 and Fri 14 available
Sat 15 to Tue 18 not available (altho' offers will be considered)
Wed 19 to Sat 22 available
Sun 23 Grimsby FC
Mon 24 to Fri 31 available
APRIL 2024
Sat 1 to Sun 13 available
MAY-DECEMBER 2024
ALL DATES AVAILABLE
JANUARY - DECEMBER 2025
ALL DATES AVAILABLE
For most folk hereabouts booking folk music, the name Tommy Sands will be very familiar from his innumerable tours in the UK over the past four or five decades.
If you're not familiar yet with Tommy's work ... he's a master songwriter and peace / social activist from Northern Ireland. Quiet spoken with a sort of wistful stage manner, he delivers songs of injustice and our humanity with well-targeted humour, an unerring aim and an understated manner. As Tommy says he may not always win the argument but, if just being able to create a better quality of disagreement is all that can be achieved, that for him counts as a win.
Tommy Sands was born on the family farm on the 'Ryan Road' in the townland of Ryan, near Mayobridge, County Down, Northern Ireland. His parents, Mick and Bridie, both came from families of singers, musicians and storytellers and encouraged a love of Irish culture and tradition in their seven children (Mary, the eldest, then Hugh, Ben, Colum, Eugene and Anne). His father Mick (known to all as 'The Chief') and six uncles played the fiddle. His mother Bridie, an accordionist, is the daughter of 'Burren poet', Owen Connolly, and her mother was related to the Brontë family. Their Céilidh house on the Ryan Road, in the foothills of the Mourne Mountains, was a focal point for Catholic and Protestant neighbours from nearby farms to enjoy music and craic.
Tommy attended college to study theology and philosophy in the 1960s, but one day he just dropped out and began to walk the 120 miles home to concentrate on his music career. Along the way a car filled with his siblings picked him up to perform at a concert. Brother Colum rolled down the window and said: “We’re going to play at a concert. We’ve got your guitar in the back of the car.” So Tommy joined them. He and they (as The Sands Family) never looked back! ('Newry Memoirs – Pride of Mayobridge').
Tommy Sands' iconic and best known song is "There Were Roses". The song recounts how a Protestant friend of Tommy's was murdered in Newry during ‘The Troubles’ by Republican paramilitaries. In the aftermath loyalist paramilitaries "prowled round the Ryan Road" for a Catholic to kill in retaliation. Ironically, the man they selected had been a good friend of the Protestant victim and also of Sands.
This powerful song was first recorded by Robbie O'Connell with Mick Moloney and Jimmy Keane as the title track on their first album. Tommy also recorded his own version as the opening track of his 1985 album Singing of the Times. The song has also been recorded by Joan Baez, Kathy Mattea, Dolores Keane, Sean Keane, Frank Patterson, Paddy Reilly, Dick Gaughan, The Dubliners, Cara Dillon, Lisa McHugh and many others (that's some array of talent!). It has also been translated into many languages and is currently included in the English language syllabus in German secondary schools.
Selected press quotes (a few from the many) …
You'd have to be some mean class of bastard to dislike this music. (HOT PRESS)
The gentle songs of a gentle man, ringing out above the tumult and the shouting. Through people like Tommy Sands there will be an answer. (BELFAST TELEGRAPH)
Most gifted songwriter ... with an ability to write on serious subjects which come across as songs rather than sermons ... also well able to be extremely funny in the way he puts words together. (IRISH TIMES)
Tommy Sands is one of the most important songwriters in Ireland if not the rest of the world. (SING OUT magazine (USA))
TOMMY SANDS: The Travels (written in 2014 revealing aspects of a typical Sands year back then)
It's true. I haven't been touring Great Britain in a long time. I miss being there and meeting up with old friends and new ones I have yet to meet. A lot of my work has been here at home in Ireland but also I have been doing much travelling beyond these islands. This 'report' will let you see what I've been doing and should explain why I've not been around your part of the world for a while
Like many others here, The Peace Process in Northern Ireland has been important to me. Music has a part to play in all of this. This video clip is a song I wrote when the Talks were faltering and we went and sang a song or two outside Stormont. The Politicians stopped talking and came out and sang with us.
Also here are some clips of other home events, some dating back and some more recent.
Many of my songs on this subject have travelled around the world. See a clip here of a version of Daughters and Sons from a gathering of US progressives - people like Angela Davis, Howard Zein and Charlie King.
Pete Seeger's passing (in January 2014) brought a great sadness to all of us but we have many precious memories. High amongst them was this wonderful night in Madison Square Garden on the occasion of his 90th birthday. I was very proud to be there with my children, Moya and Fionan;
This is a clip of Dolores Keane, Liam O'Flynn, Vedran Smailovic and myself with Pete's favourite version of Where Have All The Flowers Gone?;
It was Pete who organised my music tour of India … an unforgettable experience. A meeting with Bengal Bauls taught me many things, not least the relationship between Irish and Indian music.
Before our Moya decide to have a baby and move to Barcelona and before my son Fionan went to Big Creek, Misisippi to co-write a book about a journey he took part in on horseback with a friend across USA from East to West, we did a tour together of hurricane hit villages in Cuba. That was a tremendous experience!
I went to Palestine and Israel a few times to meet up with musicians there to help connect like minded groups on both sides. I did many concerts from Gaza and Ramalla, and Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. It was a hard tour but worthwhile. I had just written the anthem for Irish ship "The Rachel Corrie" bound for Gaza at the request of Nobel laureate Mairead Maguire who was travelling on the vessel. As a result of that, a concert I was to give in Israel was cancelled. A long story and this is the song, Peace on the Shores of Gaza.
Recently I returned to Reno, Nevada to work with music in prisons. This clip is from one of my visits to prisons.
I toured all our 32 counties in October 2013, did it all in a month and a day, and enjoyed it immensely. I did some of the gigs with Tom Paxton, some with Peggy Seeger, some with my brothers and sister in the Sands Family, some with my children Fionan and Moya and many on my own. Here is a song I wrote about that journey, Every County On The Island.
Currently I am working with theatre director Martin Lynch on a stage version of my book The Songman and still do a lot of radio here in Ireland and now do a local weekly TV music and chat hour.
So, as you can see I keep busy but I do need to reconnect with the folk around the UK.
Read here for more about Tommy Sands. Or just trawl the internet - loads of songs, stories and interviews to be found.
See DropBox folder Tommy Sands for promotional materials.