Anne Byrne had the classic ’show biz’ start to her singing career, appearing on stage at the age of three with her mother and father in amateur pantomime and musical shows. Her mother’s family, the Bradys, hail from Dun Laoghaire in Co. Dublin and were all extremely musical.
Her uncle, the famous Willie Brady,  who in [...]

Maire Ni Scolai was born in Dublin and learned her Irish in the Ring Gaeltacht of Co Waterford. After she moved to Galway  in the 1920s she organised classes in Irish singing and dancing with her sister Mona.
A very early broadcaster on Radio Eireann – or 2RN as it was then called – Maire Ni [...]

Song collector and folklorist Tom Munnelly was born in Rathmines in Dublin on May 25, 1944, and grew up in Crumlin. His parents, Tom Munnelly and Christina Gannon were Dubliners. From an early age, his love of singing was evident, whether in the midst of family gatherings or hostelling with An Óige.
His interest in collecting songs [...]

Ed Reavy was born in Barnagrove, Mudabawn, Co Cavan in 1898. He emigrated to the USA as a teenager with his family in 1912 and settled in the predominantly Irish area of  Philadelphia known as Corktown. Barring visits home in 1922 and much later in 1969, he spent his life there until his death [...]

Joe Shannon was born in 1920 near Kiltimagh, in Co Mayo. All of his seven older brothers played traditional music. When he was a young boy, his cousins and neighbours gathered at night at his family’s home to play fiddles, flutes, tin whistles, and melodeons. Joe began to play the tin whistle, [...]

While a senior at Roxbury Mission High School in Massachusetts, Joe Derrane recorded the first of what eventually became sixteen 78-rpm records that changed the course of Irish-American accordion music. These recordings, made in the late 1940s, featured Joe on the button accordion performing with a combination of ornamentation, rhythm, power, [...]

Mick Moloney was born November 15, 1944, in Limerick. He began playing tenor banjo at 16 years of age. As a teenager he listened to American folk singers, especially the music of the Weavers and Burl Ives. He remembers that there was not a lot of traditional instrumental music being played where [...]

Flute player Mike Rafferty has been honoured by the US National Endowment for the Arts with a 2010 Heritage Award.
Born in 1926, Mike Rafferty grew up in Ballinakill, East Galway, on a 12-acre farm. In the heart of a locality steeped in the very best of traditional music, he learned to play music from [...]

Johnny O’Leary was born on June 6, 1923, in Maulykevane, about seven miles from Rathmore and four miles from Gneeveguilla in County Kerry. The young Johnny was always listening to the tunes when Tom Billy Murphy from Ballydesmond, also known as The Blind Fiddler, used to teach Johnny’s uncle, Dan O’Leary, to play the fiddle.
Johnny’s [...]

Piper Seán McKiernan lives in Carna in Co. Galway, and is a native Irish speaker. His mother’s family home in Coillín, Carna, where he now lives, is situated in the heartland of the great sean nós and folklore tradition. Seán’s grandfather Pádraic Mac Con Iomaire was acknowledged as man [...]

FAME came in his 60th year to singer and fiddle player Dessie O’Halloran of Inishboffin The year 2001 saw him travel from his Atlantic island home off the Galway/Mayo coast to perform in Europe and [...]

Born near Bodyke in East Clare in 1916, Martin Rochford started learning fiddle aged ten. He was won over to the uilleann pipes when he heard the travelling piper Tony Rainey [...]

BORN in Nelson, New Zealand, his grandfather came from Wexford. As a child he would hear Irish music on some of his father’s record collection, including fiddler Sean Maguire.
He was inspired to buy a harmonica after hearing the blues playing of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee in concert. He developed an eclectic range of styles [...]

Broadcaster Ciaran Mac Mathuna’s contribution to Irish music was invaluable.

Pádraig O’Keeffe was born in October 1887 in Glounthane, near Scartaglen and Castleisland, Co Kerry. His father, John, was a school principal and he was the eldest of nine children. His mother, Margaret O’Callaghan came from a musical family and his uncle, Cal O’Callaghan, was a well-known fiddler.
After training in Dublin he became a schoolmaster [...]

Tony MacMahon was born in 1939 and grew up in the Turnpike in Ennis. His father, PJ, came from Kilmaley, not far from Miltown Malbay, and an area steeped in traditional music and dancing. His mother played the concertina. Joe Cooley, who worked in Ennis for several years was a regular visitor to the house. [...]

Horslips was made up of a group of like-minded musicians, who happened to work in advertising in Dublin. The success of their single Johnny’s Wedding led to their 1972 album Happy to Meet, Sorry to Part and Celtic rock had found its feet. Along with Planxty and the Bothy Band, they changed how a generation [...]

Biography of the Irish traditional tin whistle player Mary Bergin.

BORN in Kilnadeema, south of Loughrea in Co Galway in 1939, Joe Burke was introduced to music at an early age. His mother played the box in the old style. He recalls that he was four years of age when he first started playing. “There was always dancing in the house,” he told one interviewer. [...]

Biography of the Irish traditional music fiddle player Mairtin Byrnes from Co Galway.