Louise Mulcahy is a multi-award-winning performer on both uilleann pipes and flute. Alongside four album releases with father, Mick, and sister Michelle, Louise also appeared on Na Píobairí Uilleann’s compilation of young uilleann pipers, A New Dawn. Recently, Louise was presented with the Arts Council’s Markievicz Award. Louise was awarded the 2016 Doctoral Fellowship in Irish Music Studies at NUI Galway and her work on women in uilleann piping is due for release in a landmark documentary for TG4 titled Mná na bPíób. In 2023 Michelle, Mick, and Louise received the TG4 Gradam Ceoil family award for their contribution to Irish traditional music.
Louise Mulcahy began playing the tin whistle at age five and a few years later moved on to flute, Matt Molloy and Eamonn Cotter becoming formative influences on her style. At thirteen she took up uilleann pipes, taught by Dave Hegarty in Tralee and in monthly master-classes at NPU in Dublin.. One of the few female performers on what is a male-dominated instrument, she featured on the NPU compilation A New Dawn in 1999, and has taught at both the Chris Langan Piping Tionól in Toronto and the East Coast Piping Tionól in the Catskills, USA. A primary-level teacher in Co. Meath, she is the only person in the fleadh’s history to have won four senior All-Ireland titles in the one day.