Dreamers Rise

Ideally I should have posted this on St. Stephen's Day (December 26th according to the Western Christian calendar), but the elements did...

I've always enjoyed this Ewan MacColl song, which I first heard on Planxty's eponymous debut album, but this gentle version (featur...

The story of the adventures of the Irish abbot St. Brendan or Brenainn was a popular one in the middle ages, with a substantial number of ma...

Christy Moore : When I go to West Clare I can see the music in the hills and stony fields. Today I look out upon the Sheep's Head and o...

Ireland's TG4 has broadcast a superb documentary about the master uilleann piper Liam O'Flynn, a beloved figure whose modest mann...

The great Irish piper Liam O'Flynn has died, according to RTÉ and other sources. I owe my interest in Irish music directly to O'Fl...

Universal Music Ireland has released a modestly-priced CD & DVD package devoted to my favorite Irish trad band, Planxty. Entitled Betwee...

The ensemble known as The Gloaming (Thomas Bartlett, Dennis Cahill, Martin Hayes, Iarla Ó Lionáird, and Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh) has rel...

This is really splendid: fiddler Martin Hayes and guitarist Dennis Cahill, from NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series. I love the relaxed int...

The Gloaming — Iarla Ó Lionáird (vocals), Thomas Bartlett (piano), Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh (hardanger fiddle), Martin Hayes (violin/fiddle...

— In Devon, he assures her, lived a man who experimented in dousing and other devilment. He found by means of his dousing pendulum that som...

Cal heated a tin of beans and tasted himself slice after slice of bread at the fire. He fell asleep and when he awoke it was dark. He rubb...

Across that strand of ours the cattle graze Up to their bellies in an early mist And now they turn their unbewildered gaze To where we w...

These receipts from The Williams & Guion steamship company were made out to a young Irish immigrant named Margaret Nagle for sums she se...

The letter transcribed and reproduced here is part of a small cache of correspondence exchanged between Margaret Nagle or Neagle, a young I...

At first glance, the life of Roger Casement, the British diplomat turned Irish nationalist who was executed for treason in 1916, might not s...

One The Humours of Planxty , Leagues O'Toole's collective biography of the Irish trad quartet has finally been released, a year aft...