Sarah McQuaid at The Lantern Theatre

Born in Spain to a Spanish father and American mother, Sarah grew up in Chicago, touring the US and Canada as a member of The Chicago Children’s Choir. In the mid-1990s she made her way to Ireland, where her authorship of The Irish DADGAD Guitar Book led to invitations to write regular music columns and reviews for Hot Press magazine and Dublin’s Evening Herald.

In 2008 she joined Sunshine On A Rainy Day's Zoe Pollock under the band name Mama, releasing an album lauded by MOJO’s Colin Irwin as “a pleasingly maverick mix” and by The Irish Times as “Janis Joplin’s freewheeling spirit crossed with Joni Mitchell's lyrical density.” 

Sarah’s sixth solo album, The St Buryan Sessions, was recorded live in lock-down in the beautiful medieval church of St Buryan.

Released in October 2021 on CD and limited-edition double LP, the album made it onto Best of 2021 lists on three continents and features stunning solo performances by Sarah on acoustic and electric guitars, piano and floor tom drum, her lush, distinctive vocals echoing through the soaring space. 

“McQuaid’s voice, a fragile, starkly resonant alto, has always been a thing of folk-trad beauty,” wrote reviewer Kenny Berkowitz in Acoustic Guitar magazine, “but here, with ambient mics placed around the church’s interior, it takes on a new joyfulness and a deeper darkness.” Ink 19’s Bob Pomeroy called it “a starkly minimalist recording of exceptional beauty”, and Folk Radio UK described it as “a wonderful, expressive and intimate live album from a consummate performer.”

Sarah regularly tours UK, Europe, and US, and returns to Sheffield Wed 29th April, playing at Sheffield's oldest working theatre, the historic Lantern Theatre in Nether Edge.