Storyteller (Seanchaí)
Dan O'Donoghue combines his two passions of storytelling and magic to create a unique blend of entertainment. He captivates and surprises you by mixing old stories with modern sleight of hand magic.
Dan begins by drawing you into the world of old Mayo and its wonderful traditions, a mixture of the humorous and the macabre. He brings you back to the time when the fireside chair was reserved for the storyteller. Sometimes a local tale is told straight and relies solely on his comic acting and improvisation, but other times the tale drifts into jaw-dropping visual demonstrations of magic borrowed from his time working as a professional close-up magician in Las Vegas. He strives for a seamless transition, like the ghosts and fairies in his stories real objects appear and disappear, the effect leaves his audience always wondering what will happen next.
And then there is the song and the music. As in all Irish traditional events, Dan can break into song, his love of folksongs enhances many of his tales and provide an ever-changing program of entertainment and charm.
“To dream of things that never were, to things that couldn't be to coax them from imagination into reality” —
George Bernard Shaw
