A fundraising gig for the Spirit of Folk festival will take place Upstairs in Whelan's next Thursday, with sets by The Hot Sprockets, The Young Folk, Bunoscionn and TRAZ. Early bird festival weekend tickets will also be on sale for 24 hours only on the same day from tickets.ie.

The line-up for the bash – which will expand to a second stage and two days this year – will be announced in May.

A family affair in the literal sense of the word, the Spirit of Folk festival is run by the Duffy family, who came up with the idea after a conversation that Martin Duffy had with his music-loving daughters Natasha and Emily, during which he was reminiscing about the folk bands of his youth.

Martin runs Dunderry Park, the venue for last year's festival, so he decided to host a folk-based event in the village, which is near the towns of Trim and Navan.

As well as music by members of Steeleye Span and Irish acts such as Rhob Cunningham and Lisa O'Neill last year, there were archery and falcony demonstrations, storytelling, a healing area, an organic market and more. spiritoffolk.com