Glasgow fiddler is late stand-in for Sharon at Corrs’ Hydro gig

The 29-year-old from County Mayo in Ireland lives in Glasgow and was contacted by a fellow musician on Sunday afternoon, after it became clear the show needed a stand-in fiddle player.

She went ahead with a planned folk workshop in Edinburgh before driving back to Glasgow to meet the band for the first time on-stage during their sound check.

Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland’s Drivetime programme, she described listening to the band’s back catalogue in her car during the journey to the venue, in an attempt to start learning the pieces.

“On the way I tried to listen to as much of the music as I could and take in as much as I possibly could,” she said. “It was just boom, straight into it, into the whole thing.

“It was straight on stage. There was only about an hour left on sound checks so we just had an hour basically to just run through as much as we possibly could.”

Éadaoin spent some more time running through the songs with the band’s guitarist before playing in front of thousands of devoted Corrs fans.

It was the first time she had ever played any of their songs, though she was familiar with their back catalogue.

“I think there wouldn’t be a person in Ireland that wouldn’t have listened to the Corrs,” Éadaoin said.

“I definitely recognised a lot of the songs but then again, when it comes to fiddle parts and stuff there’s such specific things the fiddle does. I had never played most them ever before.

“A lot of it was new to me in that way. I just threw myself in and tried to do the best I possibly could.”