Music maker based in Ireland.

I’ve played and recorded with people and bands such as Skipper’s Alley, Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin, John Francis Flynn, Slow Moving Clouds, Cuar, Laura Jurd, Martin Green, Natalia Beylis and Nic Gareiss. I couldn’t measure all I’ve learned from these collaborations. When I play solo, I play an alternatively-tuned alto fiddle. I love the depth of sound and the growl that comes out of the instrument. There’s been a great spirit of improvisation and innovation in Irish fiddle players of the past and I’ve been massively inspired by the likes of Nell Galvin, Tommie Potts and Neilidh Boyle, just to mention a few.

biography

Ultan is a fiddle/viola player & composer based in County Clare. Ultan has a background in traditional Irish music and improvised music and performs as a soloist and in duos and bands with Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin, Martin Green (Lau) , Nic Gareiss, Slow Moving Clouds, Skipper’s Alley, Neil Ó Lochlainn’s Cuar, and John Francis Flynn.

In March 2025, Ultan released his debut solo album, Dancing the Line, through Nyahh Records featuring Nic Gareiss, Martin Green and Edwina Guckian.

'There’s an understated virtuosity to these tunes — a weightlessness that lifts the spirit even in their plaintive moments, often propelled by the percussive shuffle of dancer Nic Gareiss, who taps his way across the album’s floorboards. O’Brien pays tribute to the experimentation that’s always thrived in the tradition, nodding to players like Nell Galvin and Packie Manus Byrne whose singular creative methods inspired his own development as a musician.' -- Eoin Murray 

In 2020, Ultan and Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin released an album, Solas an Lae, on the Scottish label Watercolour Music which was awarded Best Folk Album at the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards 2021.

Since 2018, Ultan has been creating experimental films based around music compositions. In 2022, CCI, Paris and CMC, Dublin commissioned Ultan to create a film and score as part of Ulysses Journey 2022. The film, cling(ing) like fire, was screened in IFI, Dublin; CCI, Paris; SARC, Belfast, Budapest, Hungary, and at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2022 and was described as
“…dazzled transcendence, an art-full, hyper-realised, liberation in which wild collisions of images and movement, nightmare symbols and musical effulgence, collage together beautifully to spin our heads in the most beautifully Joycean way.” — Dr Stephen Graham.