Gerry’s first solo album, Half Moon Bay, featured his own songs and instrumental compositions. Half Moon Bay was citied as one of the 12 best releases of the year by Performing Songwriter magazine and was chosen as one of Folkworld’s Top Ten Albums of the year. He has now released his second album The Bog Bodies And Other Stories: Music For Guitar, which was named CD of the Month on the radio show Echoes.


Gerry has toured recently in Holland, Australia, New Zealand and the USA, performed solo at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, and has taught musical composition from visual art at Swannanoa Music Camp. He is currently at work on an album with fiddler Rosie Shipley.

 

“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”


"An intimate amphitheatre where the gracefulness of O'Beirne's composition finds full expression."

- Irish Times


“Gerry O’Beirne has written some of the best new tunes to come out of Ireland’s Celtic music scene. O’Beirne’s guitar playing is always a thing of wonder and his lyrics have become increasingly poetic and emotionally deep.”

- Dirty Linen about "Half Moon Bay"


“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


“A masterpiece.”

- Folkworld


“He’s a lovely singer, a powerful performer and a master musician.”

- Evening Herald


“While much of his material (Isle of Malachy, Shades of Gloria, Western Highway,

The Holy Ground) is best known sung by others, Gerry reclaims his songs. He involves the listener with a gentle intensity that allows the beauty of his melodies to envelop and sweep them along: images abound of mountains and deserts, foreign lands, and County Clare, loves lost and loves won.”

- Irish Edition


“The highlight of the recent Waterboys concerts at the Olympia Theatre was a truly mesmerizing bottleneck solo.....by guitarist Gerry O’Beirne.”

- In Dublin


“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


“He plays guitar like an elephant roller skating through neon grass.”

- composer Harry Williamson

These picture are from Gerry’s website. A man of many talents.

Western Highway (A Prairie Home Companion, November 10, 2001)


Many more samples may be heard on Gerry’s website as well.

Born in Ennis, County Clare, along Ireland’s music-rich west coast, Gerry O’Beirne is a renowned singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist (6 and 12 string guitar, tiple, and ukulele, slide guitar among others). Gerry grew up in Ireland and in Ghana in West Africa, and has since lived in England, California, and Mexico. Gerry’s own compositions blend the passion found in traditional music with the freshness of contemporary song.   (www.gerryobeirne.com)