From Coolea to Guinea via the yards of Kingston, Jamaica, might seem an unlikely musical journey, but it's a route that's been usefully travelled by the Afro Celt Sound System since its emergence four years ago. A multi-instrumental ensemble of musicians from Ireland, the UK and West Africa, the Sound System weld together disparate folk traditions and underpin the resulting concoction with dub reggae bass-lines and throbs of sequenced techno lifted direct from the club culture. It's the latter element that lends the music much of its bite and verve and was certainly the clinching factor when they rocked the Opera House on Sunday.

Corkonian sean nos singer Iarla O'Lionaird remains at a priestly remove, while the band indulge their clubbier inclinations, but takes centre stage for the quieter moments. And while his voice is doubtlessly a thing of subtle majesty, you sometimes wish for it to soar unencumbered by the accompanying hotch-potch of styles.

N'Faly Kouyate shares the spotlight, offering a lonesome Guinean keen and giving the music texture with his work on the kora and the balafon. There are talking drums and celtic harps and djembes too, along with the usual clatter of folkster paraphenalia. (Sweatily, full of dread, I awaited the entrance of a didgeredoo, but the Gods smiled and I was spared.)

Journeying through time and space, then, the raggetaggle cosmonauts attempt to join in musical wedlock their eclectic influences. Mostly, it's a happy enough marriage.