The Iona Heights Inn

Trivia Night at The Frolic
2024-08-29 20:00 - 22:00, 2024-09-05 20:00 - 22:00, 2024-09-12 20:00 - 22:00, 2024-09-19 20:00 - 22:00, 2024-09-26 20:00 - 22:00, 2024-10-03 20:00 - 22:00, 2024-10-10 20:00 - 22:00, 2024-10-17 20:00 - 22:00 (America/Halifax) and 2 more dates | The Frolic’n Folk Pub & Grill, 4115 HWY 223, Iona, Nova Scotia, B2C 1A3, Canada
Come test your wits & win prizes!
3 Rounds – 12 general knowledge questions each round.
Play solo, or form a team. Funniest team name gets showered with accolades.
Hosted by your man – Ruarí Aonghas Lonce Murphy, every Thursday Night

Céilidh Matinee
2024-08-31 17:00 - 20:00, 2024-09-07 17:00 - 20:00, 2024-09-14 17:00 - 20:00, 2024-09-21 17:00 - 20:00, 2024-09-28 17:00 - 20:00, 2024-10-05 17:00 - 20:00, 2024-10-12 17:00 - 20:00, 2024-10-19 17:00 - 20:00 and 1 more date
Get a taste of local celtic music & culture with our Saturday ceilidhs (kay-lee).
Expect to see world-renowned talent & budding entertainers from all over our native Cape Breton.
General admission seating ranging from $5-$10
First come first serve at the pub. No reservations. Minors allowed up until 10PM

Cape Breton Celtic Trad Sessions
2024-09-01 16:30 - 19:30, 2024-09-08 16:30 - 19:30, 2024-09-15 16:30 - 19:30, 2024-09-22 16:30 - 19:30, 2024-10-06 16:30 - 19:30, 2024-10-13 16:30 - 19:30
Come and enjoy a casual gathering of musicians who have come together to play traditional Cape Breton celtic music.
Anyone is welcome to join in, or just sit back and enjoy the tunes.
Sundays at The Frolic 430 – 730pm
Full kitchen and bar service.
Minors allowed till 10pm

Rachel Davis & Darren McMullen CD Release
2024-09-13 19:30 - 21:30
With more than a decade of making records and touring around the world behind them—as members of the award-winning group Còig—Rachel Davis and Darren McMullen now have their sights set on something new—Home.
Recorded with award-winning songwriter, musician, and producer Dave Gunning, Home is Rachel and Darren’s long-imagined, and much-anticipated, duo album. Highlighting the pair’s outstanding musicianship and vocals, Home mixes traditional tunes and songs with original co-writes and signature classics.
Rachel and Darren are well-established and respected instrumentalists in the traditional music world and their playing on this album certainly lives up to that reputation. But over the years, each has also gained recognition for their vocal abilities, most notably with Rachel receiving a 2020 Canadian Folk Music Award in the Traditional Singer of the Year category for Còig’s fifth album, Ashlar. While Còig’s repertoire always included songs, the focus of the group was really on the tunes. Rachel and Darren wanted to shift that focus for this album and feature their vocals more. They take turns on lead vocals and harmonies throughout the 11-track album, which is split about evenly between songs and instrumentals, and the result is a cohesive collection of music performed by some of the top musicians of our times.
From the gentle but commanding riff that opens “River and the Road”, written by Scottish songwriting royalty Archie Fisher, to the unexpectedly bouncy breath of fresh air that is Laurence Gowan’s 1993 hit “Dancing on My Own Ground”, to an old standby from their live sets, “We Remember You Well” by their pal, Cape Breton Music Hall of Fame writer Buddy MacDonald, the songs on Home couldn’t be a better fit for Rachel and Darren’s voices and musical sensibilities.
The pair also wanted to do more songwriting for this album and they hit the jackpot with recording, engineering, and arranging collaborator Dave Gunning and acclaimed singer-songwriter Terra Spencer. Both Gunning and Spencer add harmony vocals to the songs they co-wrote, with Gunning also playing a variety of instruments on the album. Other musical guests include Margie Beaton (piano), Thierry Clouette (bouzouki, foot percussion), and Zakk Cormier (guitar, foot percussion) taking turns on the tunes, and English folk singer Jackie Oates who joins Rachel and Darren on harmony for the lovely Cornish folk song “Sweet Nightingale”, which closes the album.
Listening to Rachel and Darren, it’s obvious that they’ve been playing together for a while—not just as part of Còig, but also as a duo, as guests on each other’s records, and as part of bigger stage productions and ensembles. There’s an easy way about them, a sense of comfort that comes through in the music, in the mix of their instruments, the blending of their voices, and how the arrangements leave room for each other. They seem to know just when to lay back and when it’s time to “give’er”.
Rachel and Darren have had the idea of doing a duo project for a long time, since before Còig took off, really. They just couldn’t ever fit it in with the band’s busy schedule and the solo work they were each involved with. But when the world-wide pandemic shut everything down for an unknown period of time, putting everyone’s plans on hold, some members of the band turned to new opportunities and, apart from one-off shows and the annual Christmas tour, Còig basically found itself on hiatus. That was the push that the project needed, as Rachel and Darren found themselves home together, and lots of time to experiment with material.
Rachel Davis and Darren McMullen’s debut duo album, Home, released in May of this year, with Archie’s Fisher’s “River and the Road” marked as the first single and video.
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Songwriters Circle - Woody Woodburn, Steve McIntyre & Dennis Ellsworth
2024-09-20 20:00 - 22:00
Words that make you think. Melodies that get stuck in your head. Steve MacIntyre offers up both in abundance. An East Coast storyteller who makes his home in Cape Breton, Steve grew up surrounded by the best artists and entertainers in the world. It is here that he honed his craft and ability to capture an audience. It is here that he began writing songs of love and loss, travel and reflection, and it is here that you can find him spinning stories that leave people wanting more!
Born & raised in Mississauga, Ontario, with roots in Cape Breton. Woody now calls the small town of Rockwood Ontario home. He has spent time in Cape Breton every summer of his life. His music gives life to your own struggles. Like listening to an old friend. The kind of melodies that linger in your head well after you’ve heard them. Woody is an unassuming, humble guy that will surprise you with his powerful voice. A voice that combined with the real & “come from the heart” lyrics will leave you more hopeful & inspired in your life.
Dennis Ellsworth is a songwriter, performer, sideman, and record producer from Charlottetown, PE. His songwriting career started in high school, filling notebooks with lyrics and poems. He grew up on the Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, Ray Charles, Kris Kristofferson, Roy Orbison, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. His tastes evolved in grade 6 and he began collecting cassettes. His personal music collection is stylistically expansive. Some might call his love for music an addiction, but whatever.
Over the years he has collaborated with Josh Finlayson and Andy Maize from Skydiggers, Gord Downie from The Tragically Hip, Joel Plaskett, Donovan Woods, Rose Cousins, John Smith, and David Barbe (producer of Drive-by Truckers and bass player for 90’s alt rock band Sugar.)
In 2015 Dennis signed a publishing deal with Cymba Music Publishing in Toronto and has since written songs in a wide variety of styles His music has appeared in television shows for CBC, Netflix, HBO and was featured in the award-winning film, The New Romantic.
Ellsworth has released 2 full length albums with his previous group, Haunted Hearts, an album as a duo with Kinley Dowling, two EP’s and 10 full length solo albums, including his most recent triple album project called Bound by Love.

Lookout Tower
2024-09-27 20:00 - 22:00
Lookout Tower hails from memories of days gone by and of moments yet to come. Storytellers inspired by the cultural landscape of Cape Breton and woven from the yarn of hard times – their songs are the culmination of musical paths not commonly crossed. Defying genres with a no holds barred approach, vintage soul meets modern Americana where footstompin’ old-time harmonies and influences are dashed with Acadian roots, creating their original Winter Swamp Sound – a sonic palette of soulful ballads, rousing blues rock and hypnotic funk.
Their album ‘Fields’ was nominated for ‘Blues Recording of the Year’ at the 2024 ECMAs and for ‘Americana Recording of the Year’ at the 2023 NSMW.
Rankin MacEachern / vocals
Bryan Picard / guitar, vocals
Franzi Habith / bass, vocals
John Pinnington / drums

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Pub Closed for a Private Function
2024-09-29

Mike McKenna Jr CD Release
2024-10-25 20:00 - 22:00
CANADIAN SINGER-SONGWRITER MIKE MCKENNA JR. HAS BECOME A RISING STAR ON THE EAST COAST MUSIC SCENE: WITH A RASPY, SOULFUL VOICE, WARM INDIE FOLK AND AMERICANA TONES, AND BEAUTIFUL SONGS LADEN WITH CAPTIVATING STORYTELLING.
BORN IN THE PROUD COAL MINING TOWN OF GLACE BAY AND RAISED ALONG THE MIRA RIVER, MIKE’S SONGWRITING AESTHETIC POINTS HEAVILY TO HIS ROOTS GROWING UP IN INDUSTRIAL, EASTERN CAPE BRETON. OVER THE COURSE OF 3 AWARD-WINNING ALBUMS HE’S BROUGHT US THE NOSTALGIA OF HIS HOME, THROUGH CAREFULLY CHOSEN NARRATIVE, POETRY, PROTEST, AND TRUE STORIES ABOUT LIFE AND DEATH IN NOVA SCOTIA’S COASTAL, WORKING-CLASS COMMUNITIES.

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