The BIB calendar for April and May

... is a mere shadow of what it was a few weeks ago [the BIB editor writes]. Many events have already been explicitly cancelled, and we have added to the calendar - both the full calendar and the extract that appears on the BIB front page - the warning that during COVID-19 restrictions it should be assumed that all performance venues will be closed.

However, we can't at present be sure how long restrictions will be continued; and so unless an event has been explicitly cancelled, it has been let stand on the BIB calendar on the offchance that it might take place after all. Less than three weeks from now, for instance, We Banjo 3 are scheduled to play two dates at Westport and Dublin; and at the time of writing, the band's tour schedule and the venue websites all announce the gigs as still being on.

Similarly, at present the Foghorn Stringband (USA) schedule shows their dates for this month as cancelled, but not those for their announced tour of Ireland and Britain in May. On checking the venues, we find that the Foghorns' Clew Bay Hotel show in Westport has been explicitly cancelled; however, the Clonmel World Music show, which opens the tour, has not*. The Red Room at Cookstown, Co. Tyrone, announced on 22 Mar. that 'all Red Room concerts are cancelled until further notice', and followed that two days ago with the words 'Sadly, the Foghorn Stringband won't be playing their planned show here in May.' Other venues are ominously silent. Short of something like a miracle in the near future, it begins to look as if the Foghorns' tour is likely to be postponed.

Update 11 Apr.: No miracle has happened - the Clonmel World Music website now shows the concert as postponed, and the whole tour (Ireland, Britain, and Finland) now appears as cancelled on the band's tour schedule..