Ireland's music: 6 ways to discover ideas and stories you may not have heard

Ireland is a rather small country, as countries go.

As the time in spring around Saint Patrick’s day on 17 March reminds, though, through the creativity and courage of its sons and daughters Ireland has had and continues to have impact across the world.

At Music Road, we’ve been mainly concerned with how that happens through music.

Whatever aspect of Ireland you celebrate, and however you may be doing that, music goes along.

I encourage you to take this Patrick season to explore the music of Ireland beyond what’s often shared this time of year.

Slam-your-mug-on-the-table droning songs have their place, as do cry in your cup of tea sentimental pieces, fast flying jigs to which to dance, and light as air new age tinged music.

They all, in deed have their places in Irish music.

There is more to the music of Ireland, and the creativity of Irish musicians, though. There wisdom of an Ireland that is both ancient and new.

Here are several ways to help you explore these ideas.

From Altan The Gap of Dreams will take you Donegal and beyond

Connections between Ireland and Scotland in music, language, and story : Allt from Julie Fowlis, Eamon Doorley, Zoe Conway, and John McIntyre.

Fiddle, Flute, Guitar: 3 Ways to Explore Ireland

Northern Ireland: 4 Songs to Help You Understand

Discover ways Karan Casey, Cathie Ryan, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, and Cara Dillon tell Ireland’s stories, and their own

Music and Community:Stories of Ireland

...and coming up later this year, I’ve another project to tell you about that will expand on these ideas. Stay tuned!

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You can also

Silence and music: Ireland

Background silence. That is one of the things Ireland holds. Not that Ireland does not have its noisy places and moments when people -- and nature -- become loud. There is a silence though, in the waters, in the mountains, in the green fields, in the mist. Just at hand, if you choose to know it.

Music arises from and is framed by silence. So do words, and writing, and thought. And faith, if you care to see it that way. No accident that Ireland has centuries of history as a land of saints and scholars -- and musicians.



this photograph, from Louth, Ireland is copyrighted. thank you for respecting that.

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Music Road: learning about Irish music
Music Road: old songs, old stories
Music Road: inspiration: looking for the quiet
Music Road: Blue fiddle, and Ireland's northwest
Quiet Moments: waters of Ireland [at Perceptive Travel]
Delicious Baby's Photo Friday, where travelers offer new insights to the world each Friday.

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Music road trip New York City: Irish Musicians

New York City has been home, waystation, birthplace, and seedbed for many sorts of Irish and Irish American musicians over the years. Even when they’re playing the strictest traditional music, there is at times a bit of New York energy and edge in the music of Irish musicians steeped in the Irish communities of the Big Apple, and you'll often find them writing original music, and connecting Irish music with other traditions, too.

Celtic Cross offers a mix of Irish and rock to tell their tales of immigration and modern day. Cherish The Ladies started out in New York, and have taken the spirit of Irish music -- and Irishwomen playing music -- around the world for twenty five years now. Founding member Joanie Madden also teamed up with three New York Irish men to record the lively quartet album Pride of New York. One of her popular compositions, recorded by Cherish, is called Bonkers in Yonkers.

Dublin born singer Susan McKeown came to New York with an acting scholarship and stayed to become a part of the music community, keeping deep Irish roots and seeing their connections with the musics of Africa and with Jewish traditions. Eileen Ivers has taken her fiddle playing into collaborations with jazz musicians and orchestras as well as other Irish musicians, and has taken her New York energy into connections with Appalachia and the blues.

Though they’ve moved on to other places. several other musicians you’ve been getting to know along the Music Road also have spent time in the crossroads that is New York Irish music, among them Heidi Talbot, John Doyle, and Cathie Ryan.

During her time in New York, Ryan wrote a song called The Back Door. She was thinking about undocumented Irish who came to New York, but it is a song which goes to the heart of all who face change and hardship with courage. There’s a video of her singing it here.

Many of the artists mentioned above have played at the Irish Arts Center, a vibrant place for Irish music in New York which also has programs and classes on drama, literature, art, Irish language, and other aspects of Irish culture. It's been around since 1972, on West 51st Street in Manhattan.

This is part of The Great American Road Trip, in which I originally partnered up with A Traveler’s Library to add musical ideas to the book and film suggestions for journeys through the regions of the United States which you’d find there. The Library is closed now, but I think you will still find the journeys through music interesting. For more about the road trip (and a look at some great road songs) see Great American Road Trip: Music begins


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patrick season: far from home
Potato Music
patrick season: thoughts for patrick's eve
more music from the road trip
Irish music

-->If you'd like to support my creative work at Music Road and elsewhere,
here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.

Patrick season: music and mist

In Irish, the word for music is ceol; the word for mist is ceo.

It would seem a fairly large leap to suppose they are related. I’ve asked several scholars of Irish about this over the years, and other Irish musicians too, and have heard of no connection.

Music comes out of silence, and out of mystery. That does not have one face or one landscape, of course, but mist and the varied aspects of Irish landscape are certainly two of them.

Making connection between the two words and the two ideas seems a leap that’s more spiritual than practical or intellectual -- which of course makes it entirely possible. The only musician who offered a thought about this remarked that she didn’t know about the words, but that music rises out of the landscape in Ireland, though it’s not something much talked about.

I think she’s got it right, on both counts. This is in her music and in that of others you have met and will meet along the music road. It’s an aspect of music that travels to other landscapes and other silences as well, I think (see, for example, this ). As is often the case, Irish music gives a good perspective to think about things within Ireland and beyond.


you may also want to see

patrick season: far from home

Potato Music

patrick season: thoughts for patrick's eve

Irish music, Irish landscape

-->Your support for the work,here at Music Road is welcome and needed.
Here is one way to offer that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

Patrick season: another song

Patrick season is a time when many who are not Irish think of Ireland, and those who are, how ever close or distant their ties may be, think often of home, and family, of landscape, of change, of music, and of hope and courage. Those thoughts are well needed in the world this Patrick season, as ever, and as ever, music from the tradition and newer music from Ireland both have things to say that work with all this.

music to go along with these ideas




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Reflections with Mary Black
ceol chairlinn: sharing music in winter
and it is not Irish, but still --
now playing: Angels Unaware

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

Patrick season: from Mary McAleese

Mary McAleese, President of Ireland, offers her thoughts for Saint Patrick's Day 2009


Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig ar chlann mhór dhomhanda na nGael, sa bhaile agus ar fud na cruinne, ar an lá náisiúnta ceiliúrtha seo.

Warmest St Patrick’s Day Greetings to everyone taking part in this happy festival celebration, in Ireland and around the world. This is our time for showcasing the spirit of the Irish through our wonderful culture and heritage, our gift for friendship and our love of life. We will gather in both the most obvious and the most obscure of places under the patronage of St. Patrick, a man, an immigrant to Ireland whose life was one of outrageous hardship and outstanding endurance. The chances are that wherever the Irish, and their neighbours and friends gather this St. Patrick’s Day they will be making a very determined effort to find joy in adversity and a moment of distraction from serious economic and financial worries that face our country and our world.

St Patrick’s own personal story is one of facing into huge difficulties and hardships, not of his own making. His coping skills were sorely tested. In the Deer’s Cry, the beautiful poem attributed to him he says, “I arise today, through a mighty strength”. We have our own mighty strength, in the goodness, decency and hard work of so many individuals, in our uniquely strong and robust sense of community, in our history of overcoming hardship, our culture of welcome, our investment in peace and in our ability on St. Patrick’s Day to be family to one another from Beijing to Bahrain and from Belfast to Bantry. We know that our patron saint would encourage us to work with each other, for each other and work through these difficulties to a better future for everyone.

Behind every St. Patrick’s Day gathering wherever it is in the world there is a story of men and women who came together to celebrate being Irish, whether by birth or by association. They are part of a generations old tradition of volunteering help to one another, and of being community to one another. I thank all of them for the many ways in which they bring such noble and life-enhancing qualities into our world
and for the fun, enjoyment and happy memories they help create for us through St. Patrick’s Day 2009.
To each and every one of you, I wish a wonderful St. Patrick’s festival. Enjoy every moment of it and may the spirit of St Patrick be with you and your families on this day and every day. May that mighty strength be yours as it was his.



MARY McALEESE
PRESIDENT OF IRELAND

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Irish music, Irish landscape
Potato Music
patrick season: thoughts for patrick's eve

-->If you'd like to support my creative work,
here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.

Patrick season: far from home

Longing for home and being far away from it are constant themes in Celtic music. Sometimes, those are written by people across the sea, and sometimes by people who have just moved a bit down the road. It is a longing shared, though, for well known and well loved faces and the places which bring them to mind.

This is an idea which, though it sometimes gets blurred in the leprechaun hats and green beer, is a major subtext of Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations. Two songs which get to the heart of the joy and sadness mixed are In My Dreams from Rosheen on musique celtique and I'm Going Back from Cathie Ryan on The Music of.What Happens.


you may also want to see

Potato Music
patrick season: thoughts for patrick's eve
Songs of Homecoming, to Scotland and other places

-->If you'd like to support my creative work,
here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.

Liz, John, Barack, and Brian

Fiddle player Liz Carroll and guitarist John Doyle are entertaining President Barack Obama at the annual St. Patrick's Day luncheon at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The event is hosted by Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and among the guests is the the new Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland, Mr. Brian Cowen.

coming soon here on Music Road, a review of Liz and Johnn's new CD,
Double Play


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Music Road: thinking about sessions

Music Road: Songs of Homecoming, to Scotland and other places

Music Road: Tommy Sands: Let the Circle Be Wide

patrick season: unexpected Irish music

It’s an interesting thing, Irish music, encompassing greatest joy and greatest sorrow, making a good companion in solitude and yet connecting people in the immediate moment, and across time and space, holding at once songs that are bawdy, funny, and silly and including heart drawn poetry and deep feelings of the spirit as well

music for your Saint Patrick's Day from voices you may not have heard, and in ways you may not have heard them

tuning up for Saint Patrick's Day
and
tuning up for Saint Patrick's Day, continued

and, also. Live Ireland will be broadcasting live from Temple Bar in Dublin on Saint Patrick's Day (as they do every day) for a bit of live craic and no doubt a good bit of the sillier sorts of music along with the classics.

Patrick season: thoughts for Patrick's eve

Tomorrow, for a while, the whole world will be Irish. That’s a welcome thing to share for a people who in many cases were flung out of their own country by political disagreement, religious difference, economic hardship, and starvation in waves that spanned more than four centuries’ time. With that flinging out they’ve created vibrant bits of Irish heritage from Singapore to Saskatchewan, and given back to the native land as well. The first part of the year is Patrick season, those months from Christmas Day to the octave of Easter. There’s a flow of Irish music and Irish beer -- some of it green -- and such other things as fake Irish accents, chocolate shamrocks, and green grits.

It is also a religious day, the marking of a saint who came first as a slave and persuaded kings to think about his new faith. As well as that, it’s a mark of connection, a reaching back to the family and friends, across distance, and across time.

Ireland and the music its people have taken across the world are a major part of what we think and talk about here along the music road, and part of what I write and talk about elsewhere too. On this Patrick’s eve, I invite you to think about and share your own reflections on Ireland and Irish music, and to look back at these ideas:

Irish Music, Irish Landscape

Ten Songs

Donal Clancy

Thinking about Celtic Sprituality

Cathie Ryan: Irish and American

Matt and Shannon Heaton

by Kerry Dexter

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

Patrick season: thinking about Celtic spirituality

Irishman John O’Donoghue was a thinker, philosopher, poet, and spiritual teacher who died in January while still in his early fifties. On of the last recorded interviews he did was with Krista Tippett. host of the American Public Radio program Speaking of Faith. It’s a wide ranging conversation, as Tippett’s interviews always are, covering topics such as the nature of God, the nature of beauty, what life is all about, what’s unique about Celtic spirituality, and also what it means to be in service to a calling. One of the examples they get into with the latter is music. You may hear the hour long radio program here.

One of O’Donoghue’s best known books is Anam Cara, which is Irish for soul friend. Life, death, and love through the places where Celtic mysticism and Christian understanding meet are the topics.

Music to go along with this:
Caroline Herring: Twilight Her music is of the American folk tradition rather than immediately Celtic, but she definitely knows how to write about spiritual questions, framed in the life of the American South

Cathie Ryan: The Music of What Happens If you’ve traveled along the Music Road before, you've likely met Ryan’s work. Here she offers songs about motherhood, faith, leaving, returning, and change, among other things.

The Music of What Happens

If you’re up for a up for a bit more contemplation and a few more music ideas. you may want to see this post.