The tourists who flock to Bantry every year for the West Cork Chamber Music Festival, of which the opening concert takes place tonight, know all about combining one's hobby with one's holidays.

Indeed, as soon as the festivities come to an end in Bantry, many of those concert-goers will already be looking forward to a festival a little further north, in Limerick city.

The 2007 MBNA Shannon International Music Festival (formerly the Killaloe Music Festival) returns to its now very familiar Limerick city setting and runs from 11 to 15 July this year.

Curated by Anthony Marwood, artistic director of the Irish Chamber Orchestra, one would be forgiven for imagining that it is really an Irish Chamber Orchestra festival of sorts, but, whether it be a good or bad thing, the reality is quite a different thing.

The orchestra will appear thrice over the five days, including the opening and closing concerts of the festival in the University Concert Hall and a mid-festival performance in the magical surrounds of St Mary's Cathedral (13). A merry array of soloists has been engaged to perform with the ICO, none of a more unusual background than Sinead O'Connor.

Yes, the Sinead O'Connor. In the opening concert, she will perform songs from her new album, Theology, as arranged for the occasion by Orlando Jopling.

The choice is an audacious one and is likely to divide the audience in opinion but the concert's sister work, John Tavener's The Protecting Veil, for cello and orchestra is not only a good pairing for O'Connor's style but a work which has been adored by audiences since its premiere by Steven Isserlis at the BBC Proms in 1989.

The soloist on this occasion is Louise Hopkins, a former student of Isserlis and now renowned teacher and chamber musician.

Hopkins will be something of a staple at the festival, appearing again on 12 July in a performance of Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time and in the Opus One concert on 14 July (works by Thomas Ades and Korngold). Partnering her in both concerts will be Marwood himself and Serbian pianist, Aleksandar Madzar, with whom she performs and has recorded regularly. Madzar's lunchtime performance of the Diabelli Variations by Beethoven on 14 July is also one for the diary.

If afternoon concerts fit into your schedule, the ICO duets (13 July, 1pm) might entice you, as will the last concert of the festival.

Mozart's Requiem, his final and most poignant work can never be heard too often and certainly not with the National Chamber Choir and a fine quartet of soloists in tow.

Douglas Boyd, whose tremendous aptitude for Mozart did not go unnoticed when he conducted in the 2005/2006 ICO season makes a welcome return for what promises to be a memorable concert