Born in Ennis, County Clare, along Ireland’s music-rich west coast, Gerry O’Beirne is a renowned singer, songwriter, record producer and guitarist (6 and 12 string guitar, tiple, and ukulele, slide guitar among others). He grew up in Ireland and in Ghana in West Africa, and has since lived in England, California, and Mexico. He lives now near Dingle in Co Kerry. His own compositions blend the passion found in traditional music with the freshness of contemporary song.
Gerry’s much loved first solo album Half Moon Bay features The Holy Ground, Half Moon Bay, Western Highway and The Shades Of Gloria which have been sung by Maura O’Connell, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, Mary Black and many other great singers. His second album The Bog Bodies And Other Stories: Music For Guitar was named CD of the Month on the American radio show Echoes, and one of its essential albums of the year. “Yesterday I Saw The Earth Beautiful”, a duet album with fiddler Rosie Shipley featured his own songs, settings of poems by Paddy Kavanagh and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill along with traditional tunes from Ireland and Cape Breton. On his new album Swimming The Horses Gerry performs a new collection of songs and guitar pieces written in Dingle in West Kerry.
Gerry has toured the world as a solo artist and with the Sharon Shannon Band, Patrick Street, Midnight Well, Andy M. Stewart, Kevin Burke, Andy Irvine, and the Waterboys. He has performed at the White House, opened for the Grateful Dead, played electric guitar with Marianne Faithfull and thought nothing of playing with a Romanian orchestra and choir in a cemetery in Transylvania at night. He has written music for film and theatre and appeared on Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion. Recently he has been working with New York composer Peter Gordon on a recording of the music of the legendary Arthur Russell, and recorded recently with Peter Gordon and Tim Burgess of the Charlatans.
His songs were celebrated in a special concert at Sligo’s Fleadh Cheoil in August 2015 and his song All Down The Day was nominated for song of the year at the Fok Awards 2019.
In 2022 He performed a concert of solo guitar improvisations at Féile na Bealtaine in Dingle.
He has produced albums including Promenade by Kevin Burke and Michael O’Dhomhnaill (winner of the Grand Prix Du Disque at Montreux), Irish Times by Patrick Street, Man in the Moon and Donegal Rain by Andy M. Stewart, The Connaughtman’s Rambles by Martin O’Conner, Up Close by Kevin Burke, Silver Hook Tango by Australian singer-songwriter Kavisha Mazella, albums by Sarah McQuaid, and Lumina by Irish piper, low whistle player, and composer Eoin Duignan. His latest production is So Ends This Day by the great West Kerry singer Éilís Kennedy.
“Beautiful… Exuberant and lyrical sound… an album so full of melodic warmth that it can barely be contained… one of the most perfect acoustic albums I’ve heard in a while …. a career defining album” — John Diliberto of Echoes about “The Bog Bodies And Other Stories: Music For Guitar”
“ “O’Beirne’s 2000 LP Half Moon Bay is beloved for good reason, and i’d highly recommend giving a listen to his latest effort, Swimming The Horses, which was self-released in May 2019. Even for listeners largely uninterested in Irish folk music, “The Last King Of Feothanach” and the alluring title track are beautifully haunting ballads, and O’Beirne has managed to write perhaps the canonical musical setting of James Joyce in “Golden Hair”.” – Colorado Springs Independent. ” — Colorado Springs Independent
“An intimate amphitheatre where the gracefulness of O’Beirne’s composition finds full expression.” — Irish Times
“The instrumentals are out of this world. A self taught master of the 6 and 12 string guitar, the playing of O’Beirne is superlative and subtle beyond words.” — The Sunday Times
“His works are simple, elegiac and exquisitely worded pen pictures of life’s experiences.” — Rock ‘N’ Reel
“Material comes from Paul Brady, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Shawn Colvin and Lennon & McCartney, but the highlight is Gerry O’Beirne’s beautiful ‘Half Moon Bay” — Q Magazine (of Maura O’Connell’s ‘Stories’)
“He should be compulsory listening for any aspiring ambitious guitarist. It’s not just his technical dexterity and brilliance that catches the imagination, it’s the inventive use of arrangements, lyrics and melody.” — The Word
“Intelligent, articulate, insightful musicianship from a real craftsman. Not a wasted word nor an untrue note”— Pay The Reckoning
“A sublime talent….opens new creative vistas for acoustic guitar music” – fRoots