World's Music at Oxford: Landless

The Dublin-based quartet of Lily Power, Méabh Meir, Ruth Clinton and Sinéad Lynch have been singing together as Landless since 2013, carrying traditional music with them into strange and beautiful directions. Their voices combine as one instrument in breath-taking tight harmony, or else twist around in intricate polyphony, transforming centuries-old ballads and contemporary folk songs into powerful, atmospheric explorations of love, loss and lore. Theirs is a sound stripped right back as to just leave its fundamental core: raw, unaccompanied human voice, only occasionally joined by sympathetic and sparse instrumentation.

Centring their most recent album, Lúireach (released in 2024 on the iconic Glitterbeat Records), around female perspectives, stories and agency, Landless grounded their repertoire in the traditions of Irish music while extending their reach to encompass songs from Scotland, England, and even Slovakia. The album gained them a deserved wider recognition including rave reviews in The Guardian, Songlines and The Wire and the title of Best Folk Group at the RTÉ Folk Awards 2025.

Landless are part of the vibrant musical community that has pushed the darker edges of traditional music forward over the past decade, alongside Irish artists Lankum, Lisa O’Neill, John Francis Flynn and Ye Vagabonds, as well as kindred musicians on this side of the Irish Sea such as Stick in the Wheel, the Shovel Dance Collective, and previous World’s Music at Oxford alumna Brìghde Chaimbeul.

Please join us for what promises to be an intense and intimate evening of music and goosebumps at St John’s College as the World’s Music at Oxford welcomes Landless.

Free tickets for this concert will be available from Friday 18 September at this link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1996974366086