Sharon Shannon

Few players have carried the button accordion as far from its roots as Sharon Shannon, the Clare-born musician whose fiddle technique and accordion playing have made her one of the best-known names in Irish traditional music. Her work starts in Irish folk but opens onto reggae, Cajun, Portuguese and French Canadian influences, and she also plays tin whistle and melodeon. Born in Ruan, County Clare, on 8 June 1968, she came up through local bands before a spell with The Waterboys.

Her 1991 debut album, Sharon Shannon, became the best-selling album of traditional Irish music ever released in Ireland, and she followed it with Out The Gap in 1994, a record produced by Dennis "Blackbeard" Bovell with a distinctly reggae feel. The Diamond Mountain Sessions followed in 2000 and was certified triple platinum. A live version of "Galway Girl" with Mundy won a Meteor Award for most downloaded track in Ireland, and in 2009 she received the lifetime achievement award at the Meteor Music Awards. NUI Galway gave her an honorary doctorate in October 2018.