25/09/2026
THE MAN ON OUR LOGO
We thought we'd tell you the story of the man you may have spotted on our logo โ and why we do this every October.
His name was Joe O'Neill, from Athy, County Kildare. A legendary Irish musician, bandleader and teacher โ and, to us, the reason there's music in this family at all.
He could turn his hand to anything with keys, reeds or bellows โ accordion, piano, saxophone, the bagpipes. From the 1940s through the 1960s his Stardust Orchestra played the dance halls the length and breadth of Ireland and toured across to the UK, sharing bills and trading blows with the biggest headline big bands of the day. In an era when a dance band could fill a hall on its name alone, Joe's was one of them.
But ask anyone in Athy and it's not the touring they'll tell you about. It's the teaching. Joe founded St. Joseph's Boys Band, and later the CBS Brass and Reed Orchestra, and through them he handed music to generation after generation of local children โ instruments in young hands, notes on a page, a place to belong on a Tuesday night. Half the town learned to play because Joe O'Neill took the time. That's the legacy that outlives any tour poster.
He and his wife May raised a big family, and they raised it on music. Joe passed in 1989, and for a good while afterwards life carried us all in different directions, the way it does.
Then, some years on, we noticed something: we only ever seemed to see each other at the traditional hatch, match and dispatch โ the odd christening, wedding or funeral. And we decided we wanted more of each other than that. So in 2005 we started gathering every October instead โ to play the tunes Joe loved, to sing, and to be in the one room together for no reason other than that we could. We named it after him.
Early on, we made two decisions that have never changed: every penny raised goes to charity, and nobody ever claims a penny in expenses. It's given the whole thing a purpose beyond ourselves โ and it's taken us further than we ever imagined. From all over Ireland to England, on to Spain, even New York, and back again. Across every Seis we've held, we've now raised nearly ยฃ80,000 for good causes.
That's the whole of it. The Seis isn't a gig and it isn't really a festival, even though it's grown into something that looks like one. It's a family keeping itself together the only way Joe would have wanted โ with music, out loud, and doing a bit of good along the way.
This year, for the first time, we bring it to London โ three nights, Friday 23rd to Sunday 25th October, in a city that so many of the family and so many of the Irish now call home. Every note played across that weekend is played with Joe in mind.
Come and be part of it. You'll leave feeling like family โ because for one weekend, you will be.
In support of the London Irish Centre and the Irish Cultural Centre.
โ The O'Neill family
