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

After a decade and a half and seven studio albums, Solas … Read More

Imelda May, Shane McGowan, Jerry Fish and various Waterboys guest on Sharon Shannon’s new album, ‘Saints and Scoundrels’ Eamon Carr interviews her for the Evening Herald.

McAlpine’s Fusiliers is a lively, successful Australian Celtic Rock group … More at  http://www.myspace.com/mcalpinesfusiliers

Opening of new Comhaltas centre is boycotted by [More]

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

The Young Dubliners is a band playing between borders of both emotion and geography.

These Spaniards effectively combine Irish music with modern sounds

Comhaltas is considering holding Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann in the North. The move would be a first in 59-year history of the Fleadh. Comhaltas boss Senator Labhras Ó Murchú said it was incumbent on them to host a fleadh in Northern Ireland as it had contributed greatly to traditional song and dance in Ireland.

THE credit of recording the first Irish music on banjo goes to James Wheeler. With Edward Herborn accompanying him on the box, they made their first recordings in 1916 and 1917.
Mike Flanagan of the famous Flanagan Brothers played banjo. Born in Waterford in 1898, he started out playing the mandolin. His lively technique can be [...]

Biography of the Irish traditional tin whistle player Mary Bergin.

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

Dennis Cahill was born to Irish parents in the southside of Chicago in 1954. At age ten he became interested in folk music such as Peter Paul and Mary, Simon and Garfunkel, and got his first guitar at that time. In his late teens he began playing in the local clubs in the folk scene [...]

One of the big names of Irish fiddle playing, Bobby Casey was born at the Crosses of Annagh near Miltown Malbay, Co Clare. He has lived in London since 1952. His father John ‘Scully’ Casey, who died when Bobby was 15 or 16, was a well-known fiddler as well as being a flute and concertina [...]

Julia Clifford was born on June 19, 1914, into a musical family at Lisheen, Gneevgullia in the Sliabh Luachra area north of Killarney, Co Kerry. The travelling fiddle teacher Padraig O’Keeffe tutored both Julia [...]

Johnny Connolly was born on the now-abandoned island of Inis Bearacháin, off Leitir Móir in the Connemara Gaeltacht. Once, when he was about nine or ten, with his parents away at the currach races in Leitir Móir, he got his hands on his older brother’s melodeon. Soon he was playing a tune on it. By [...]

THE great Irish novelist John McGahern once said that he expected his characters were waiting for him to die off before taking on lives of their own. The accordeon music of Joe Cooley has taken on a life of his own since his death in 1973.
Joe Cooley was born into a musical family in Peterswell, [...]

Fiddle and concertina player, singer, composer and storyteller, Martin (Junior) Crehan was born on January 17, 1908, in Bonavilla, Mullagh, Co Clare, into a house of flute players, concertina players and dancers. His father was a teacher at Shanaway National School. Junior learned concertina from his mother and later when learning fiddle was greatly influenced [...]

Associated by many with the revived fortunes of the concertina, Elizabeth Markham was born on December 6, 1885 in Gower, Cooraclare, in south west Clare. Better known to traditional musicians as “Mrs Crotty,” she grew up on a small farm in a home that was full of music. Her mother learned to play the fiddle [...]

Gerdie Cummane was born on October 6, 1917, in Ballyknock, Kilnamona, Co Clare. He started playing the concertina in 1926, learning by “hit and miss” from his [...]