The Blow-Ins. Songs. Stories. Good Humour.

Story

Two Musicians.Distant Beginnings.One Home.

A musical friendship shaped by different pasts and a shared present, in a town where music lives in the houses and wanders the streets.

Dave and Tom carrying their instruments along a coastal path beside a stone wall

Before the duo came together, the pieces were scattered far and wide.

Dave and Tom together before forming The Blow-Ins
Before The Blow-Ins found their final form, they had already begun to take shape.

Music was in both of our lives from an early age in different ways. Tom, as a drummer growing up in Connecticut, USA, played countless gigs all over New England before deciding to explore family roots on the west coast of Ireland in 2007, soon finding his way into the local music scene. Dave learned cello and then guitar in Oxfordshire, UK, but never considered it as more than a hobby. He found himself in West Kerry after a chance encounter in a Belgian bar in 2002, soon finding work singing in the local pubs and hotel bars.

Different shores, different accents, but an instant friendship on first meeting in Dave's music shop in 2007. Life in Dingle starts and ends in the pub, and in those early days there were late nights, long conversations, many laughs and maybe a pint or two. Eventually, bands were started and ended until finally it was decided that a duo was the simplest and most effective way of doing what we loved, singing together. It may have taken a few years, a few mistakes, and maybe a few more pints, to find its final form, but in 2013 a residency in The Dingle Bay Hotel began, a seasonal gig that endures to this day. New residencies and venues soon sprang up and before we knew it we were playing to people night after night.

When live music was restricted during the pandemic, we found a way to keep playing. Even when separated by the Atlantic, The Blow-Ins started a weekly livestream series until rooms once again opened their doors to us in late 2021.

Poster for the 2022 documentary Blow-Ins alongside Dave and Tom during the filmWe are Blow-Ins by name and by nature, a term used by locals to describe those not born in the area. But we were welcomed in Dingle and so we stayed, absorbed the culture and, eventually, learned the songs. We later featured in the 2022 documentary "Blow-Ins", along with many others who had come from elsewhere and made Dingle their home.

Dave and Tom performing together in an intimate venue
In 2013, they found a home base at the Dingle Bay Hotel, a room that would become part of the story.
Dave and Tom performing together at an intimate wedding reception
By 2022, they were a more seasoned duo, performing for a private audience at Kilkea Castle, County Kildare.

Our set is based in Irish folk music, but as Blow-Ins we cannot deny that our musical influences come from further afield, just like we do. Our repertoire is a patchwork of songs from all over the folk, pop and rock world, from songs our parents played us in our youth, to songs we learned in our dorm rooms as students, to Irish drinking songs, to old melodies heard sung by locals at a wedding at 3am. And much more. Now, after so many years of playing together in various forms, we have over 400 songs to draw from on any given night. Songs of emigration and homecoming, love and loss, humour and hardship. Songs that make you laugh, cry or, sometimes, both. Songs that remind you of distant days, and even songs that you just heard your kids listening to on their Spotify playlist. Familiar tunes as well as stories to be encountered for the first time.

Dave and Tom seated outside a Dingle venue with their instruments
2024: At home in the Dingle Bay Hotel, with familiar songs, easy humour, and years of shared performances.

We are at home on Ireland’s western edge. Our music travels far beyond.

Timeless songs. Good company.