There are many, many fine Irish music blogs out there. It seems most of them focus on indie and emerging artists, album reviews, and promoting live shows, but that's not what I'm here to talk about.
Mine is perhaps a well-worn story: the American’s pining for the mystical land of her ancestors. But I pined so fiercely that back in the early 1990s, I made my way by train and ferry boat from Austria to Ireland for three days of dancing in pubs and walking through my cousins’ marshy fields. I went back for the summer of 1995 to study at Trinity, and then lived in Galway for two years, from 1996 to 1998. After that, it was several weeks in Dublin, and then home to the U.S. for good.
Since I left Ireland in 1999, I have missed the country so deeply that, until very recently, I didn’t really have much to do with Ireland at all — I had get my head wrapped around being back in the States. But a couple years ago, I rediscovered Irish music. Not the “Danny Boy” my mother loved (though it has its own longing loveliness) — but the the music that helped to inspire my interest in Ireland in the first place. In the process, I've also stumbled upon some music — old and new — that's rekindling the passion I had for Irish music so many years ago.
So, because I'm not in Ireland and can't promote live shows — whether they're in Doolin, Dublin, or Meath — I would simply like to share some of the Irish music I grew up with. Music I first heard on dusty cassette tapes and CDs discovered on the bottom shelf of my local library. Music that, for me, evoked not only the mystical land of my ancestors, but also the promise of a contemporary Ireland that I had yet to encounter. Music that I continue to discover, thanks to the wonders of the internet (especially YouTube).
To all of these artists, Go raibh mile maith agaibh.
And now: Let us listen.
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