Fiddlesticks: Much-loved UCC ensemble reunite for Cork Folk Festival
Liz Doherty founded Fiddlesticks while teaching in UCC. Picture: Lorcan Doherty
In 1994, Liz Doherty – a renowned fiddler from Buncrana, Co Donegal – was lecturing in the music department at UCC. She had a brainwave. She wanted her students to learn traditional music through performance so she got them playing together as a trad fiddle ensemble, discovering aspects about music with their instruments in their hands, through tunes.
At the end of the academic year, the class put on an “exam” performance at Cork’s Triskel Arts Centre. The roof nearly caved in.
