"Kate's stories are as lilting and infectious as her fiddle playing. Your emotions will be moved by the one and your toes by the other."

Carol E. Titus, Founder,
NJ Storytelling Network

"I enthusiastically recommend Kate Danaher as a storyteller. . . . Her stories were wonderfully warm, funny, and perfect for any generation."

Karen Quinn, Director,
Corbit-Calloway Memorial Library

"Kate’s complete character immersion in stories from the collection of her friend, the late Eamon Kelly, of Dublin, Ireland, is a beautiful thing to behold. She delivers delightfully riveting, poignant and humorous tales of Irish country life and the Irish American experience.

I recommend Kate without hesitation. She has performed at our Lower Brandywine Storytelling Festival for the past four years, alongside talent like Bill Lepp, Willy Claflin, Bill Harley, Kim Weitkamp, Ed Stivender, Andy Offutt Irwin, etc. We invited her in as 'Local Talent,' only to discover that she is a national talent who just so happens to be available to us locally."

Michael Wright, Director,
Lower Brandywine Storytelling Festival

"Festival goers were overwhelmingly positive about your performance — they were downright glowing!  Your combination of music and Irish tales, and the background explaining where you got the tales was a wonderful extension of the stories and added great depth to the program."

Mary Morgan Smith, Director,
Three Rivers Storytelling Festival

Kate Danaher

Storytelling

Imagine a time when the whole country sat by their turf fires on a Sunday night, listening to Eamon Kelly, Ireland’s master storyteller, live on Radio Eireann. A great storyteller in her own right, Kate Danaher will recreate this delightful experience for you. With songs and stories, and fiddle tunes learned at the kitchen table of that other Irish master, Sligo fiddler
John Vesey, Kate will take you to Ireland once again or for the first time. With tales of the old times to make you laugh, you’ll feel like you are home.

Kate has told stories at Philadelphia’s famed Kimmel Center (opened for The Chieftains), the Philadelphia Folk Festival, the New Jersey Folk Project (opened for Tommy Sands), the Three Rivers, New Jersey, Riverway, and Lower Brandywine Storytelling Festivals, the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire (opened for Aiofe Clancy), and at Irish festivals in Philadelphia,
New York, Chicago, and elsewhere hither and yon.

Kate’s programs include All Things Irish, Across the Broad Atlantic, and Land of Saints, Sinners, and Scholars. She also performs with fellow storyteller, Jim Hawkins in Eamon Kelly: His Life and His Stories. Some of Kate’s stories for children are featured on the multi-award-winning CD,
Just Kiddin’, recorded in 2010 with her duo, Danaher and Cloud.

Kate has been interviewed on Irish radio and invited by Ireland’s Minister of Arts, Culture, and the Gaeltacht to do a storytelling tour of Ireland in May 2012. She has also been asked to perform at the Naples Philharmonic Center for the Arts.

But when it comes to things she is proud of, Kate is most proud of this note she received from a fan: "For someone who grew up in the 60’s listening to the greatest storyteller (seanchai) of all time, Eamon Kelly on Irish radio, it is so heartening to discover someone who cares enough for this great art to perpetuate his memory."

Sample Story, Tune, and Song

Click title below to listen.