Fiddle player Tommy Peoples’ work as a composer is recognised in this year’s TG4 Gradam Ceoil awards.
Donegal and Altan accordionist  Dermot Byrne heads the list of recipients of the TG4 2013 (Traditional Music Awards). Born and reared in Buncrana in the north-east of the county, his roots stretch to the Teelin Gaeltacht in the south-west [...]

Leitrim born musician and composer Charlie Lennon has launched a new collection of his works, Irish Tunes for Fiddle, Musical Memories 2, published by Walton’s. It contains 72 tunes and follows on from a previous collection of Charlie’s compositions, published in 1993.
This new book and accompanying CD was a major undertaking, because he wanted to [...]

Legendry Traveller musician The Pecker Dunne has died at the age of 80 after a long illness.
Pecker Dunne was born into a Wexford travelling family. He was actually born in a horse-drawn caravan in Castlebar, Co Mayo, on April 1, 1932. He tells us in the song Wexford that his father was a [...]

Pogues singer Shane MacGowan has teamed up with actor Johnny Depp to release a new single. They have recorded the 19th century ballad The Leaving Of Liverpool.
The single is being released after it was recorded for legendary producer Hal Wilner’s upcoming album Son Of Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs and Chanteys – a follow-up [...]

Fiddle player and composer Tommy Peoples has been elected to Aosdana.
Born near St Johnston in Donegal, Tommy Peoples has been a member of traditional Irish music groups 1691 and the Bothy Band and an influential and respected player in his own right. He lives in Co Clare.
Aosdána was set up in 1981 by Charlie Haughey [...]

Barney McKenna, a founding member of The Dubliners has died aged 72. He collapsed at his home with a heart attack on April 5. Friend and guitar player Michael Howard said he was visiting the musician at his home in Howth when he collapsed while drinking tea at breakfast. Attempts to revive [...]

Singer Tommy Makem has been nominated as a potential inductee into the Irish American Hall of Fame. “Mr. Makem is a pioneer as far as Irish folk music is concerned, and well deserving of this honour if he is to receive it,” said Mike Shelvin, a member of the Irish American Heritage Center’s board of [...]

Former Stocktons Wing member Steve Cooney’s marriage to singer Sinead O’Connor has ended. “Steve is lovely, so it’s not his fault, but mine,” the singer told the Irish Independent (14/4/2011). “it was not an extremely happy marriage. I am heartbroken about the marriage breaking up,” she said.
The split occured three weeks ago, just eight months [...]

The Obama Administration has refused to allow Irish American traditional musicians (and Irish musicians resident in the US) to participate in the Second Annual Celtic Festival in Cuba from April 15-26.
The festival is being organized by Irishman Kilian Kennedy who discovered during a vacation in Cuba a lively Celtic tradition sustained by immigrants and descendants [...]

The London Feis is to rise from the ashes of the London Fleadh. Spurred on by the recession at home, promoter Vince Power has spotted the opportunity and is reviving the Fleadh, the Irish music festival whose rise and fall marked the flow and ebb of the previous wave of Irish emigration.
Bob Dylan, who headlined [...]

Singer Paul Brady confronted Communications Minister Eamon Ryan at a music seminar in Dublin over what he perceives as the Government’s failure to protect the livelihoods and rights of Irish recording artists.
Paul Brady said he didn’t believe the Government was taking a strong enough line when it came to banning and blocking [...]

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 his father, Tom “Barrel” (because people thought he could fill a barrel w ith wind), who played flute [...]

Aimee Farrell-Courtney from Ratoath in Co. Meath was crowned World Bodhrán Champion 2010 at the annual festival in Milltown in Co. Kerry on June 7. Aimee came first of 15 entries in the senior competition,  judged by Donal Lunny, Connor Lyons and Sandra Joyce. She has being playing the Bodhrán for 13 [...]

The Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO) has moved against several top Irish blogs, demanding they pay hundreds of euro annually to continue sharing songs – even if they are sent to them by the artists and labels themselves, according to the Guardian newspaper.
So far, IMRO has contacted only three Irish blogs, but [...]

Last year the Kilfenora Ceili Band marked their hundreth birthday with a hectic schedule, including Glastonbury Festival. So time for the centenarians to hang up their instruments? Far from it, the Kilfenora continue to evolve. Their performance at Glor in Ennis on April 24 looks interesting, with additional players and unusual instruments joining them.
“The [...]

Altan mark 25 years as a band on Febriary 17 in the British Midlands …

Donal Lunny talks about university life in Limerick …

Opening of new Comhaltas centre is boycotted by [More]

For his new album, fiddler Kevin Burke teams up with composer Cal Scott

As the economy worsens, traditional music can help heal and bind us.