Musician, producer, and one of the great shapers of Irish music

A celebration of Dónal’s life and music. Details coming soon.

Dónal Lunny was popularly regarded as having being central to the renaissance of Irish Music over the last three decades.

Since the seventies Dónal has had involvement with some of the most innovative bands to emerge from Ireland including Planxty, the Bothy Band, Moving Hearts, Coolfin, and more recently Mozaik. He has toured across the world, collaborating with musicians of many different cultures.

Dónal co-founded Mulligan Records and produced 17 albums for the label. Since then he has produced tracks for, and collaborated on albums with Kate Bush, Mark Knopfler, Indigo Girls, Clannad, and Baaba Maal among others. He produced the internationally acclaimed album for EMI, ‘Common Ground’, featuring such artists as Bono, Neil and Tim Finn, and Elvis Costello.

He continued his work in studio production, also occasionally composing music for theatre, television and film.

A member of Aosdána, Dónal received an Honorary Doctorate in Music from Trinity College in 2008. In 2009 he was appointed Artist in Residence at the University of Limerick, where he taught regularly. In January 2026 he became the first inductee into The Late Late Show’s Trad Music Hall of Fame, a surprise honour presented during the show’s Trad Special. It followed the Lifetime Achievement Award at the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards in 2025 and a BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018. Each one recognised more than half a century of music that changed how Ireland hears its own tradition.

Beyond the stages and the studios, Dónal was a generous and thoughtful man who cared about the people around him. He was as happy sharing a tune with a young learner as he was playing to a packed hall, and he gave his time, patience and encouragement freely to anyone who wanted to learn. Friends, neighbours, students and fellow musicians knew him for his warmth and his kindness as much as his talent. He was loved by many, and he will be deeply missed.