The somewhat snowy sidewalks along East Merrimack Street were filled with foot traffic around 7 p.m. on Wed., Dec. 17. as families and friends walked toward the Lowell Memorial Auditorium, where members of the Celtic Woman’s “Symphony Christmas Tour” were making ready for their time on stage.

While the weather was warming up outside, and the snow was melting away, a holiday wonderland lay beyond the extravagant main entrance with the auditorium's white walls paired with green details and red seats making it seem that the facility, built in 1922, was designed specifically for a Christmas celebration. 

By 7:30 p.m., the seats in the lower bowl of the auditorium and the first few rows of the balcony were full. The theater darkened, and the festive audience went silent as conductor Lloyd Butler, sporting a burgundy velvet jacket, walked on stage. With his back to the audience, he stood before the full symphony orchestra. 

Seconds later, the musicians moved into stride with a nearly seven-minute overture, starting with notes from “Silent Night” and then weaving into other Christmas classics and some Irish tunes. 

After a round of applause, the Celtic Woman quartet – sopranos Mairéad Carlin and Muirgen O’Mahony, and two new ensemble members, Caitríona Sherlock, a Sean Nós vocalist, and Ciara Ní Mhurchú, a fiddler, took the stage.  

In similar floor-length red ball gowns, the women opened with a quickly paced “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” As the song intensified with each note, some audience members leaned forward in their seats while others bounced their legs to the beat. 

From there, the foursome continued with classics like “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing” and “O Holy Night” before delivering an Irish twist: The overhead lights turned full green, and O’Mahony introduced Wexford Carol, an Irish Christmas carol passed down through the ages as an oral tradition treasure. 

Other Celtic tunes included the lullaby, “Codail a Linbh,” which translates to “sleep my child,” and  “River,” sung by Carlin, who has been a member of the group since 2013. She, like O’Mahony, loves to return to Lowell each year because they love that Irish culture and holiday are alive and well in the old mill town. 

As the night progressed, the holiday feel was amplified by yuletide classics and new compositions shared through the magical sound of Celtic Woman. 

As the show wound down, the excitement in the room seemed like that that of a kid on Christmas Eve. But with the holiday still a week away, the Celtic Woman group still had a few venues to visit and holiday revelers to entertain:

A show in Baltimore the next night (Fri., Dec. 18); two shows in Atlanta over the weekend (Dec. 19, 20); and a final event, on Dec. 22 in Charleston, South Carolina. 

The tour is wrapping up, and Christmas 2025 will be history before we realize it, but the Celtic Woman album, “Nollaig – A Christmas Journey,” can be enjoyed all year round on platforms like Apple Music and Amazon Music. 

Come March 5, the group will be back in Boston on their “A New Era” tour, where they will perform downtown at the Orpheum Theatre. Tickets for this show can be purchased at ticketmaster.com01006365AFDAB3A9.