Celebrating 150 years of music – Kildare's Ballymore Eustace Concert Band

Founded in 1875, Ballymore Eustace Concert Band – also known as the Wolfe Tone Brass and Reed Band - is celebrating its 150^th anniversary this year, and with a complement of no less than 70 members, is still going strong in 2025.

The band plays a wide variety of music including popular, classical, film music, Irish traditional and some brass band favourites.

Since its inception the Ballymore Eustace Concert Band has provided a musical backdrop to community events in the Kildare/Wicklow area and beyond, from being awarded the keys of the City of Worcester Massachusetts to appearing in a number of on screen productions alongside such luminaries as Richard Harris and Brendan Gleeson.

Band leader, Eimear Deegan talks to Kildare Now about the band's success to date.

READ NEXT: Kildare business set for National Enterprise Awards final

“The band was formed in 1875, so it's our 150^th anniversary this year. We don't actually know who founded the band, but we know that a family called Hynes were very involved in its early days. We now have about 70 members, a mixture of adults and children across two bands.

“Most of the members come from Ballymore Eustace, Naas and West Wicklow, but we also have a few travelling from Mullingar, South Dublin and Portlaoise.

“We practice every Friday night in a beautiful purpose built hall in Ballymore Eustace, We're going to play at the Kaleidoscope Festival in Russborough House next month, we play the Electric Picnic most years, and then after that we mostly play village fairs and the Riverbank Theatre and places like that.”

As part of its 150^th anniversary celebrations, Ballymore Eustace Concert Band visited Berlicum in Holland over the May bank holiday weekend to play with the local band there – which is also celebrating 150 years - and played a number of hugely successful concerts with them.

“It was brilliant,”, Eimear says, “we played a big indoor concert with them and we played a concert at a windmill the next day, and then we played at a war memorial.

“We won the South of Ireland Band Championships about eight years ago, and we enter that most years. Our junior band also came second in the Irish Band Championships a few years ago as well.”

Culture Night

“We're going to have a really big concert for Culture Night in September, in the Old Mill in Ballymore Eustace, it's a building that's being converted into a whiskey distillery at the moment.

"That's Culture Night, it's the third Friday in September, and it's sponsored by Kildare County Council."

Eimear puts the success of Ballymore Eustace Concert Band down to “really good camaraderie” and an “absolutely fantastic” conductor called Jon Clifford.

The band is also intergenerational, she says, so that many parents play alongside their children, and in some cases, their grandchildren, helping to foster a feeling of family in the close-knit band.

Ballymore Eustace Concert band is currently looking for new band members, so if you feel you have what it takes to join Kildare's leading concert band, contact: wolfetoneband@gmail.com.

The band also takes adult beginners.