As the birds and blooms awaken as February drives on, so too does West Cork as gigs are back in full swing after the relative quiet of January. Music, poetry, chamber music and trad are all on the agenda for the first few months of the year, and next  month Glanmire artist Sarah Hickey brings her blend of folk, rock, and pop to Ár n-Áit in Skibbereen on March 8th, with the venue’s monthly jazz session with David Desmond, Martin Vallely, and John Philip Murray on this Sunday February 15th from 5pm.

Meanwhile, there is a wide-ranging variety of concerts coming to St Catherine’s Cultural Centre in Kinsale over the next few weeks, with the Piatti Quartet on March 12th and folk music from Mochua, with Kinsale native Tom Madden on guitar and vocals, on March 14th.

Niamh Strong and her band will perform the songs of Eva Cassidy at the same venue on April 4th while at the Kinsale Hotel, Bagatelle and Friends will celebrate the life and legacy of Liam Reilly on April 3rd. Luka Bloom is coming to Timoleague on March 20th, where he has some family and previously recorded with John Fitzgerald at the Lettercollum Recording Studio. Meanwhile on April 10th, it’s the turn of the smooth sounds of The Drifters with a tribute act in the Courtmacsherry Hotel.

For something a little different, the World Poetry Slam Champion Harry Baker comes to Camus Farm in Ardfield on July 18th this year, the night before he plays four nights in Whelan’s in Dublin. The West Cork show will be the only one this side of the world, and follows sets at the same venue from Colm Mac Con Iomaire on May 2nd, Susan O’Neill on May 23rd, and Clare Island folk singer Niall McCabe on June 6th.

Ballydehob’s Traditional Music Festival is back in town with Four Men and a Dog in the community hall on March 27th, while down Rosscarbery direction the Trio Bohémo make their Irish debut at St Fachtna’s Cathedral. One of Europe’s most ‘exciting young chamber groups’, their repertoire includes O Viridissima, and Amanda Feery’s Gone to Earth.