WHAT’S in a name? Quite a lot for some musicians it seems, after a spat between two of the founding members of trad supergroup De Dannan erupted into a public row as some of Ireland’s best-known musicians insulted each other on the airwaves. Alec Finn, who founded the band along with fiddler Frankie Gavin, sent [...]

This mid-1960s close harmony group enjoyed immense success in Ireland. The original line-up, which used to play in the family pub in Slane, consisted of Adrienne Johnston, vocals, her sister Luci, vocals, and brother Michael, guitar.They were only performing as a group for six weeks when they came to national prominence by winning the first [...]

In the mid-1960s, Donal Lunny and Brian Bolger had been singing together in a group called The Emmet Folk Group with banjo player Mick Moloney.
The name Emmet Spiceland came about when they teamed up with Michael and Brian Byrne from Sheffield’s Spiceland Folk shortly before winning the Wexford Ballad contest in 1967. (In the previous [...]