'This is about more than music': Story behind the Ukrainian choir singing Phil Coulter's Steal Away

The Derry singer and songwriter says the musical project is "extremely inspiring"

Phil Coulter and Ukrainian choir launching a re-recorded version of Steal Away, partially translated into Ukrainian, in Dublin today. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins Photos

When Ukrainian-born Julia Boyko started chatting to Irish musician Dermot Dunne at the National Tchaikovsky Academy of music in Kiev where they were both students, she says she’d never have imagined it would become a friendship that would last decades. Or that it would even take her to live in Ireland.

It was Julia and her husband, Victor’s relationship with the musician all those years ago that set off a chain of events that saw the couple moving to County Cavan and opening their own music school, Gold Star School of Music.