CARA Dillon is in the running for Folk Singer Of The Year in next Wednesday’s BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, so it was surprising to hear the County Derry folk musician admit she was nervous about recording the standard As I Roved Out for her latest album.

By her side, husband, guitarist and keyboard player Sam Lakeman couldn’t resist teasing her, as he interjected “because she’s got such a c**p voice, hasn’t she”.

Cara turns 40 in July, and she is singing more mellifluously than ever, on her return to the recording studio for 2014’s A Thousand Hearts.

The only wrong note last Friday was confusion over whether the location was the Royal Hall or Harrogate Theatre, leading to some audience members making a last-minute dash up Cheltenham Crescent.

Cara apologised for any inconvenience, praising the audience for the energy they were giving off (maybe from running up that hill).

She then delivered a supreme set of Irish folk songs, adding whistle and flute on occasion and relishing in the brilliant musicianship of Lakeman, guitarist Ed Boyd, and in particular accordionist Luke Daniels and fiddle player Niall Murphy, who was as exhilarating in his contributions as Steve Wickham is to Mike Scott’s Waterboys.

A Thousand Hearts provided highlights aplenty, from Jacket So Blue, a song Cara’s sister discovered in an Irish pub, to Bright Morning Star, a song as beautiful as its title suggests, before Sam and Cara closed with the fitting encore of The Parting Glass.

It was a glass very much full.