Irish Trad Music Blog

ONCE again the Carlingford Community Development in association with Saint Oliver's Primary School and the Carlingford Lough Youth Peace Project has organised the excellent Ceol Chairlinn Traditional Music Learning Festival in Carlingford from 3rd February until February 5, 2012. This year's line up of tutors maintains the high standards the organisers have set for themselves since the festival was established in 2006. These include; Fiddle: Gerry O'connor. Accordion: Martin Quinn. Uilleann Pipes: Pádraig Mcgovern. Song: Len Graham. Banjo: Brona Graham. Flute/whistle: Catherine Mcevoy. Sean Nós and Set Dance: Micheál and Kathleen Mcglynn. As in previous years, the Club Cheoil will be in Mckevitt's Village Hotel and the now established tutor and student session in St Oliver's Primary School. Village tunes in for Ceol Chairlinn - Local Notes - Argus.ie Related articles Celtic Connections lights up January in Scotland (irishtradmusic.blogspot.com) Masters in ...

The Pogues and Kristy MacColl’s “Fairy Tale of New York” is officially the most played Christmas song of the 21st century. Music body PPL totals up every public airing of the song in Britain. Its calculations include plays on the radio, TV, and as background music in shops, bars, gyms, and restaurants. They began their calculations in 2000. The song, released in 1987, never reached number one in the charts in Britain, but is played around the world every Christmas. It has also been featured in the UK’s top 20 chart on seven occasions. Jonathan Morrish, spokesman with PPL, said “Fairytale of New York is a timeless classic which everyone knows and rightfully deserves its place at the top spot”. Writing in the Irish Times, Joe Cleary, a lecturer in the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, said that the song told the story of the reality of Irish emigration and what lay behind the “American Dream”. He wrote, “With the exception of Joyce's ‘The Dead’ or Patrick Kavanag...

Storyteller Tomáseen Foley and his ensemble of dancers, singers and musicians bring to life earlier times in Western Ireland, where the spirit of Christmas drew families and neighbors together for evenings of lighthearted, jovial fun. "A Celtic Christmas" recreates such a night before Christmas in a thatched farmhouse in Teampall an Ghleanntáin, where the rafters ring with Irish songs, traditional music and dance and stories of life in the distant parish, also Foley's birthplace. ian.org "I play the man of the house in the show," Foley says. "The singers, musicians, dancers and audience play the neighbors. We engage our audiences, and there's a lot of spontaneous laughter." "A Celtic Christmas" will be presented at 3 and 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 21, at the Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater, 23 S. Central Ave., Medford. New songs, dances and stories fill this season's production, mixed with material from previous ones. "The...

Image via Wikipedia I am not sure what made 2011 such a prolific and significant year for books being published on Irish traditional music, but there have been several more that I thought were worthy of recommending to those with a serious bent on the music. At this time of year they do make wonderful gifts for those on your list. While they appear expensive and not likely to be found discounted at Amazon.com, they will be appreciated for many years to come and provide valuable and authoritative insights into Irish music. It has been 12 years since Armagh native and musician/journalist Fintan Vallely published his first Companion to Irish Tradition Music in 1999 which in 478 pages attempted to provide a comprehensive guide to traditional Irish music and musicians. It was an ambitious and successful effort, but there were some criticism that it wasn’t comprehensive enough and there was demand over the years for a revised edition. Vallely undertook the challenge and engaged a num...

Image by IvanWalsh.com via Flickr A DAD'S LIFE: THE FEADÓG bloody stáin . Is it even an instrument? Or is the tin whistle a jigging, reeling, anti-Sasanach weapon of parental torture? I’m disgusted at myself. I wanted to be that encouraging parent, the one who has the kids trying everything and not caring whether or not they succeeded just as long as they gave it a rattle. Music, sports, drama, performance art, whatever, just get out there and express yourself kids. You know, that type of insufferable parent. Of course, this requires a complete personality overhaul. For a start, I do care if they succeed or not. I’ll be the one tripping the other kid as she rounds the final corner of a 400m final just ahead of mine. It’s a fight out there, we all need a little help. The other thing is music. I can play Wild Thin g badly on the guitar, and the opening to Desire . That’s where it ends. In school, I was a bass in the choir mainly because I harassed the teacher into letting me ...

It started with a late night tweet. But it could end up as as the Christmas No 1. The first-ever charity single recorded using Twitter, #twitterxmassingle, was launched in Dublin yesterday, and raced straight to number 4 in the Irish iTunes chart. Written by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson, 'Winter Song' came about after Brenda Drumm from Newbridge in Co Kildare tweeted on Saturday November 19: "Wouldn't it be great to have a Twitter Xmas Single?" Within hours @BrendaDrumm was getting tweets from musicians, singers, studio technicians, and other well-wishers across the country eager to help. Recording of the Christmas single took place just eight days later, on Sunday November 27, when 140 people gathered in the Westin Hotel in Dublin. Organisers picked the track 'Winter Song' as their single because it fitted the season, and also because the record is a fundraiser for the Neonatal Special Care Unit in the National Maternity Hospital in Holles...

Cover of Four Men and a Dog Monroe’s pub Saturday night, December 3 Well known trad group Four Men and a Dog, who are celebrating 21 years on the road, will perform in Monroe’s pub in the city this Saturday night, December 3 as part of a nationwide Irish tour. The current line-up features Cathal Hayden on fiddle and banjo, Donal Murphy on accordion, Gerry O’Connor on banjo and fiddle, Kevin Doherty on guitar and vocals and Gino Lupari on bodhrán and vocals. Four Men & a Dog have forged a reputation for their with their eclectic blend of music, mixing Irish with a wide spectrum of other genres, including rap, Southern rock, jazz, blues, bluegrass, polka, country swing, and salsa. Four Men and a Dog made their debut performance as a band in Murphy's Bar, Dungiven, County Derry, in 1990 and stole the show at the Belfast Folk Festival later that year. Barking Mad, their debut album won an award for Album of the Year from Folk Roots magazine in 1991, marking the first time...

Cover of Woody Guthrie Coming up in mid January, the Celtic Connections Festival, will light up the winter season in Glasgow, Scotland with music. There will be pipe bands, cutting edge contemporary Scottish and world musicians, tunes on fiddle, harp, guitar, whistle, bodhran, and other instruments, and songs from the many traditions and languages that intertwine with the music and history of Scotland. All told, there will be more than three hundred events as the nineteenth edition of Celtic Connections unfolds across the city. Whether the venue is a small listening room or the main auditorium of the Royal Concert Hall, though, the festival artists, staff, and audiences maintain a welcoming and friendly atmosphere that only adds the spirit of the music they share. This season. that music will include a celebration of the centennial of American folk song legend Woody Guthrie, as the one hundredth anniversary of his birth is observed by musicians from many traditions. There will be ...