From left: Donal and Aoife Clancy with their cousin Robbie O'Connell.

We mentioned last week that Donal Clancy was following in his father’s footsteps (Liam) and lending his powerful voice to keeping the great ballad tradition of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem alive with a new recording about to be released.

Some years ago up in the Catskills when Donal, Aoife Clancy and their cousin Robbie O’Connell were all teaching in the same year we put them together for a couple of stage acts under the moniker of the Clancy Legacy.

Donal and his wife Mary Rafferty Clancy returned to Ireland to live about four years ago, but Aoife and Robbie still do shows together under that title and in fact have a little Christmas tour coming up in New England where they live.

It’s called “A Celtic Christmas Concert” and along with the two very fine singers in Aoife and Robbie are fiddlers George Keith and bass player Erik Wendelken.

It starts with two shows in Rhode Island, the first on Saturday, December 7 at the Blackstone River Theatre 8 p.m. in Cumberland followed by December 13 in Bristol at Linden Place.

On December 14 they’ll be at the Circle of Friends Coffeehouse in Franklin, Massachusetts and on the Cape in South Yarmouth at the Cape Cod Cultural Center on December 21.  For more info visit robbieoconnell.com.