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, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]

Paddy Keenan’s father John came from Westmeath, his mother, Mary Bravender, from Co. Cavan. Both Paddy’s father and grandfather were uilleann pipers and his father was a pipe-maker. Paddy’s brother Johnny was a well-known banjo player up to his death in March 2000. In 1955 the family settled in Ballyfermot, Dublin, under a government settlement [...]

Fiddle and concertina player John Kelly was a central figure in Irish traditional music in the middle decades of the past century. Without him we would very probably have had no recording of the piping of Johnny Doran. In fact he is the only musician known to have recorded with Doran.
Born in 1912 in Rehy, [...]

Uilleann piper and pipe maker Eugene Lambe was born in Malahide, Co Dublin, on August 8, 1945. His mother Kathleen and uncle John McKeon both played fiddle.
The tin whistle was his first instrument, at ten years of age. Schoolmaster Liam Joyce from Mayo taught him his first tunes.
He has had no formal teaching in music. [...]

By Ronan Nolan
In the 1950s and 1960s, when the music of Coleman and Morrison seemed to a new generation to have been there forever, hearing Sean McGuire playing his fiddle on Radio Eireann had an uplifting effect.
Sean Stephen Maguire (he later changed his name) was born in Belfast on December 26, 1927, into a musical [...]

Denis Murphy was born on November 14, 1910, at Lisheen, Gneeveguilla Co. Kerry. His father Bill had a fife and drum band which performed at local events like Knocknagree races and he played flute, fife and fiddle. Bill married Mary (Mainie) Corbett, herself a fine singer, and they had eight children, of which Denis was [...]

One of the most influential accordion players in Irish traditional music, Paddy O’Brien was born in Newton, about five miles from Nenagh in County Tipperary, on February 10, 1922. His father, the fiddle player and accordionist Dinny O’Brien, led the famous Bridge Ceili Band. The fiddler Sean Ryan was a cousin.
Paddy took up the fiddle [...]

The curious journey, detailed below, of Francis O’Neill from a West Cork farm to occupying the office of Chicago Chief of Police, is in itself the stuff books in the mould of Jack London are made of. But it was the tunes and songs picked up from his parents and visiting musicians at the family [...]

By Ronan Nolan
Sean O Riada was born in Cork city in 1931. His mother was from Ballyvourney, Co Cork, and his father from Clare. At a young age the family moved to Adare, Co Limerick, before returning to Cork and he went to school at Farranferris. While in Adare where his father was posted, he [...]

by Mac Entee
Widely regarded as one of the most gifted musicians of her generation, Sharon Shannon was born in the Village of Ruan near Corrofin in Co Clare. Her parents IJ and Mary were set dancers and the four children all play music: Sharon accordeon and fiddle, Mary (Bumblebees) banjo, Majella fiddle and Garry, flute [...]

He is the man with the longest CV in Irish music. Donal Lunny was born in 1947 into a large family in Tullamore before moving to Newbridge, Co Kildare. His mother came from Ranafast in the Donegal Gaeltacht, his father from Enniskillen. He shunned early attempts to teach him the piano and his introduction to [...]