Ireland and Irish America: twenty years of Solas and music

Twenty years ago. Think back a moment to where you were and what you were doing -- and how the past two decades have unfolded. Changes will be a constant, no doubt, whatever area of life draws your attention with these thoughts.

That has been true for the band Solas, too. When flute and banjo player Seamus Egan, guitarist John Doyle, fiddle player Winifred Horan and singer Karan Casey brought their varied backgrounds of in Irish music together in New York City in the mid 1990s, they were each working on other projects. They knew they liked the sound they were creating together, though, a sound which, both lyrically and melodically, drew on their experiences in both Ireland and North America. They knew they wanted to share what they were creating with wider audiences, too -- what they did not know is that they were at the start of becoming one of the most celebrated and influential groups in working in the music of Ireland and Irish America.

They decided to call themselves Solas, which means light in Irish. That’s been a true name, one that ties into the energy with which they present their music and the discoveries they make in it and share with their listeners. Miles and miles and decades of world tours, band members coming and going, gigs in world class venues, awards, recognitions, road songs and road stories by the thousands learned and told, and it turns out they have been at sharing this music for twenty years. How to mark that milestone with a recording?

Founding members Horan and Egan, longtime cohorts Eamon McElholm on guitar and piano and Mick McAuley on accordion, and most recent member singer Moira Smiley didn’t want to do a retrospective, exactly. They did want to honor and include past band members as well as give the nod to the continuing and evolving nature of the sound they create now.

All These Years is the result. It is a sixteen track journey that moves from high energy jigs and reels to graceful slower pieces, from songs that come from the tradition to newer songs from writers including Martha Scanlon and Patty Griffin, and music written by members of the band as well.

Song and tune alike, there’s connection and creation evident between the players and the singers, and stories told as thoughtfully through tune as through song. Past members of the band were able to join in, too, adding and recalling their own distinct contributions to sound and story. Doyle and Casey are part of the project, as are former band members Donal Clancy, Johnny B. Connolly, John Williams, Mairead Phelan, Deirdre Scanlon, Noriana Kennedy, and Niamh Varian-Berry. Long time collaborators Chico Huff, Trevor Hutchinson, and John Anthony sit in too.

If you have been walking the music road with me for a time, many of those names and the music they make will be well known to you. Whether or not that is the case, what they have gathered to create with All These Years is indeed music which looks both back and forward, honoring the band’s past while standing brightly in the present and looking toward the future.

Each of the tracks is well worth your time, and well worth more than one listening. It is also a project that will benefit from being heard in the order in which the artists have designed it for you. Especially take note of Wandering Aengus, with Noriana Kennedy as the singer and a really interesting musical framework for her singing, Winifred Horan’s quiet composition, a waltz called Lost in Quimper, Moira Smiley’s take on the traditional song As I Went out Walking, Niamh Varian-Berry and Karan casey leading things on two rather different songs from the tradition, Willie Moore and Sixteen Come Next Sunday respectively, and Horan on fiddle and Egan on piano on the closer, Egan’s title track All These Years. In fact, if you’ve only time for one track, listen to that last one -- and then you will want to hear all the others, too.

At Celtic Connections in Glasgow this winter, there was a CD release concert at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. All the musicians on the recording got to be there, as well as several other unexpected guests. I was fortunate to be there, and that is where most of these photographs were made.

Band photograph courtesy of the artists. Performance photographs of Seamus Egan, Moira Smiley, Winifred Horan (with Moira Smiley in the background), and Karan Casey with Donal Clancy by Kerry Dexter, made at Celtic Connections with permission of the festival, the artists, and the venue involved. Thank you for respecting copyright.

You may also wish to see
Solas:Shamrock City
Exiles Return: Karan Casey and John Doyle
Ireland's music: Danu: Buan

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Ireland's Music: four albums to explore

The island of Ireland is a small place, really. For all that, it has landscape both dramatic -- think the Slieve League, Bloody Foreland, the Cliffs of Moher -- and quiet, such as the countryside near Saul where Saint Patrick walked, the green fields of Monaghan, and the backroads of County Louth. There are lively cities and quiet towns, winding roads and mountains wrapped in mist. Condensed into two countries and one small island, these are aspects of landscape that call forth dreaming, connecting, and creating. This is part of the reason Ireland is known as the land of saints of scholars -- and of musicians.

As you might be thinking about, dreaming of, or making your own way across the landscapes of Ireland, here is music you will want to include in your soundtrack for such a visit, whether you travel through geography, memory, or imagination:

The members of the band Danu take in quite a few places in Ireland in their own geography: musicians come from east and west and north and south of the country. So do the songs they have chosen for the album Buan. The word means lasting in Irish, an right enough title for a recording that among other things is meant to celebrate twenty years since Danu began. There are waltzes, marches, hornpipes, and reels, and songs aplenty too, with words in both English and Irish. There is music from the tradition and music newly composed, some of that from Danu’s own folk. Listen out especially for Donal Clancy singing the outlaw ballad Willie Crotty that tells a story of times past that resonates with today’s events, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh with John Spillane’s powerful emigration song passage West, and the whole of the band on the slides and reels that make up the Kerry to Donegal set.

The musicians of Altan are well grounded in the music and landscape of their home place of Donegal in Ireland’s far northwest. They have delighted audiences from Asia to Austraila with it, and for their album The Widening Gyre they decided to explore the connections of their music with the the music of the mountain south in the United States. That’s an interesting journey, with song and tune that draw on both of those traditions and on what connects them. There’s a set beginning with Buffalo Girls from the bluegrass side of things and taking a fast paced path to the fiery fiddle style of Donegal, a set which the the musicians say evolved from them sitting around swapping tunes in the studio. Plenty of American folk musician guests on the album, which was recorded at Compass Records studio in Nashville, among them Mary Chapin Carpenter, Bruce Molsky and Alison Brown. It is Altan’s sound which anchors the vision, though. For a fine example of that check out Altan founder, fiddle player and singer Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh’s duet with bluegrass master time O’Brien on Gypsy Davey/The House Carpenter.

Speaking of vision, the one singer and flute player Nuala Kennedy had for her album Behave the Bravest was to include quite a bit of music sourced from areas near where she grew up, Dundalk in County Louth in the east of Ireland. The ten tracks on the recording offer that, with a fine balance of song and tune, and Kennedy also lets in hints of her travels with her music and longtime residence in Scotland along the way. Listen out especially for the Fair Hill of Killen, a love song in Irish with lyrics by Ulster poet Peadar O’Doirnin, the emigration song Lovely Armoy, and the set of reels which begins with The Glen Where the Deer Is.

Cathie Ryan sources the songs she writes and the songs she chooses from contemporary and traditional sources in light of her heritage as the first generation daughter of parents who came from Ireland to America, and in light of her own path as an adult which has seen her live for years in the United States and equally years in Ireland. That dual respect is evident in the music on her album Through Wind and Rain. The Wishing Well is a song with an Irish melody framing words Ryan wrote herself, while Fare Thee Well finds Ryan adding and changing verses to an Appalachian tune to reflect her own take on the story the song tells. The title comes from a thoughful song about friendship from Kate Rusby. Mo Nion O, written by Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh is a song about sharing hopes and wishes with a child, so it seems only right that Ryan kept some of the verses in Irish and with Ní Mhaonaigh’s blessing, translated some into English. Speaking of blessing. Ryan’s take on May the Road Rise to Meet You may give tou a whole new thought about the song, and the Irish blessing which inspired Roger and Camilla McGuinn to write it.

Photograph of Altan courtesy of the artists; all other photographs by Kerry Dexter. Thank you for respecting copyright.

Several ways to explore Irish music further:
Cara Dillon: A Thousand Hearts
The Clancy Legacy
Matt and Shannon Heaton: Tell You In Earnest

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Ireland's music: Danu: Buan

One of the hallmarks of the music of Ireland is connection, and another is conversation. Between musicians, with listeners, with the strands of irish tradition, with contemporary music which draws on tradition -- connection and conversation happen in al these ways. For twenty years, the musicians who join together as the band Danu have been working on this. Their album Buan clearly shows that they just keep getting better at these connections and conversations.

Across the years and through a few changes in membership, the band has retained the bright fire with which it began in Waterford those years ago and added the seasoning and maturity that twenty more years of living and playing music will bring. With musicians coming from Waterford, Dublin, Donegal, and Kerry they choose music which draws the range of Irish landscape into the conversation.

They invite listeners into the musical conversation of Buan with an opening set of slides and reels in which the traditions of Donegal meet those of Kerry. Bouzouki joins with flute, accordion takes its place as the tunes unfold and fiddle leads a lyrical dance on the closing tune as all the while bodhran speaks of the beat. Musical conversation continues with Nic Amhloaibh singing a song from Dingle in Irish. A lively set of jigs including two from McAuley’s pen flows into Nic Amlaoibh’s thoughtful rendition of Lord Gregory, a story of star crossed lovers which shows well not only Nic Amhloaibh’s fine voice but also the players’ ability and skill in supporting and illuminating a story told in song.

That skill is also evident in another and very different song. Donal Clancy’s choices in singing and phrasing work brilliantly to tell the story of Willie Crotty, an eighteenth century outlaw from the Waterford area whose colorful life is told in a song written by Clancy’s cousin Robbie O’Connell. The fast paced melody and upbeat playing only enhance Clancy’s storytelling flair.

The musical conversation in Buan continues in equally interesting fashion through a set of reels and a set of two lighthearted songs in Irish that the band dedicates to their children. The men of Ireland’s east and north were inspired by the west as well as a lovely set of a waltz composed by McAuley leads into a march composed by Clancy, both written after the band spent a week of rehearsal in West Kerry last spring.

The enigmatic, poetic, and image filled song Passage West by John Spillane of Cork provides a gorgeous showcase not only for Nic Amhlaioibh’s voice but for all the band members working together to create a vibrant story told as much through melody as through word -- and the words and singing themselves are powerful enough that they could stand alone.

Reels and hornpipes taken over from pipes music make up a set following Passage West, which makes a graceful bridge to The Willow Tree, a quiet song which weaves modern day love song with myth, legend, and landscape and which Nic Amhlaoibh learned from the singing of its composer, Padragian Ni Uallachain. That makes a fitting close to this conversation in music -- rather than a close an invitation to a quiet pause to reflect on the journey the conversation has taken, really -- a pause which will very likely lead to repeated listening.

Danu are: Éamon Doorley, guitar and bouzouki, Oisín McAuley, fiddle, Benny McCarthy, Accordion, Dónal Clancy, guitar, voice, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, voice, flute, and whistles.

Joining them on Buan are producer Donal Lunny on buzouki, zook, harmonium and bass bodhran as well as former band members Tom Doorley on flute and whistle and Donnachadh Gough on pipes and bodhran. For the concert at which the photographs were made, Oisin McAuley was delayed by weather from arriving in Glasgow, so former member Darragh Doyle stepped in. Phil Cunningham on accordion and Julie Fowlis on voice and whistles were also guests at the concert in Glasgow.

Photographs were made by Kerry Dexter at the Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow, with permission of the artists, venue, and festival. Thank you for respecting copyright.

You may also wish to see
Ireland's Music: The Small Hours: Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh
Robbie, Aoife, and Donal: The Clancy Legacy
Julie Fowlis: Every Story

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Another way to support: you could

Holiday gift list: Irish music

The winter holidays are here, a great time for gift giving. What makes a better gift than Irish music? Look into these -- and, indeed, any recording by the artists named here -- and you will want to have several for your own as well as fill out your gift list. If you’ve come to Irish music by way of the stage shows by Celtic Women, the High Kings, and Lord of the Dance, welcome -- and prepare to go deeper into the music of the Emerald Isle. Much deeper. More about that idea here.




Cathie Ryan The Farthest Wave
Resilience and restraint are two qualities which mark Ryan’s work here, both in her singing and in the songs she chooses. Not for nothing was she named Irish Voice of the Decade, and she is also one of the best songwriters around, as witness the title track, a consideration of healing, hope, and courage framed in images of myth and the natural world. To learn more of Ryan’s work, you may like to follow this link.







Matt and Shannon Heaton Lovers’ Well
Lovers’ Well is one of those recordings that reveals more grace each time you hear it. Matt and Shannon Heaton have chosen a mix of not so usual Irish songs about love in its varied guises, along with tunes that are just the right tempo for couples to dance to, and a love song from Thailand, honoring Shannon’s time spent in that country, which somehow fits perfectly. Both the Heatons sing, separately and with fine harmony; he plays guitar and bouzouki, she plays whistles and flutes. If you happen to want to learn to play Irish music, or have someone on your gift list who does, follow the link above also to find out about Shannon's book, Oil for the Chain, which is a fine resource.

Julie Fowlis and Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh Dual
Julie Fowlis is from the Outer Hebrides of Scotland; Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh is from West Kerry in Ireland. Several years back they found that there are both similarities and differences in the musical traditions of their home places, and began exploring them. This intriguing album is the result.

Liz Carroll and John Doyle Double Play
Liz is an American who plays the fiddle so well that she won All Ireland competitions as a teenager; John is an Irishman now resident in America, a guitarist and singer who has been touring with Joan Baez and has worked with Susan McKeown, Cathie Ryan, and Michael Black and was a founding member of Solas. Liz is also a very fine composer. Plenty of her originals on here, and powerful singing and playing from John on traditional music too.

Donal Clancy Close to Home
The guitar is a rather recent addition to Irish traditional music, and Donal Clancy is one reason why it is such an integral part of the genre now. For this recording, it’s basically the man and his guitar on a gracefully chosen set of traditional tunes in Clancy’s own arrangements. For more on this album see Voices: Donal Clancy



Altan Local Ground
Local Ground for Altan is Donegal, in the northwest of Ireland. That’s an area where the traditions of Ireland and Scotland have mixed over the years, producing a tradition that’s both vibrant and soulful. This recording shows that through tune and song, and gives hint of why Altan is still delighting listeners after more than twenty years. also see music of Donegal: Altan




Aoife Clancy Silvery Moon
That's pronounced EEfa, in case you were wondering, and she’s cousin to Donal, above. She’s chosen a mix of American and Irish songs songs well suited to her inviting voice and style for this collection. There’s a stunner of a song about peace in Ireland, too, by another cousin, Robbie O’Connell, called There Is Hope -- look out for that one especially


and if Irish dance is especially your thing, be sure to check out this CD: Ellery Klein & Ryan Lacey: Kick into the Beat

coming up along the music road: holiday gift suggestions for the music of Scotland, the music of America, and music connected to the winter holidays.


you may also wish to see
Music Road: Best Music, 2010
Music Road: now playing: Mary Black: 25 years 25 songs
Music Road: now playing: Karan Casey: Ships in the Forest
Music Road: holiday gift list: music of Canada
Music Road: holiday gift list: American harvest
Music Road: Cathie Ryan: Songwriter

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Music for father's day

In her song I’ll Go Too, Carrie Newcomer traces the turns from father reassuring daughter to daughter giving her father comfort. It’s a gentle take on growing, risking, grieving, faith, and connection. My Father's Only Son offers another look at the father and child connection, changing as the child grows, framed in memorable images of fishing and evenings in the midwest. You may find both of these songs on her album Betty's Diner: The Best of Carrie Newcomer.

If you might be looking for an Irish tune for the day, guitarist Donal Clancy has that covered, with the piece Ask My Father, on his recording
Close to Home.




you may also wish to see
The Clancy Legacy

Carrie Newcomer: Before & After

Mother: music celebrating mothers and motherhood: McKeown, Ryan, Spielberg

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The Clancy Legacy

The Clancy Legacy


There's both an openness and connection that lives through the music when Irish music is shared with friends and family. Those are gifts that cousins Robbie O’Connell, Aoife Clancy, and Donal Clancy have translated well in the recording of their first album together as a group.

They’ve chosen songs and tunes from the tradition, both familiar and lesser known ones. Robbie takes the lead voice on the opener, the happy story of man and maid and reminiscence told in Jug of Punch. Aoife steps to the fore with a gorgeous job on the lament Ho Re Ho Ro, and Donal’s guitar leads the way through a set including Breton Tune, Lillies in the Field, and The Limestone Rock. Love songs, story songs, songs with a twist of humour, and additional tunes comprise the rest of the set on the recording. Top notch singing, very fine playing, and well chosen songs and tunes, and the warmth of that family connection, mark this as a collection that rises to the top of current traditional recordings.

Not that you’d expect any less, really, from O’Connell, Clancy, and Clancy. Each of them has excellent solo albums out. Robbie is well respected for his songwriting, Aoife is known as a top notch singer, and Donal is rated as one of the best guitarists working in Irish music. In their individual careers, they’ve worked with top artists and bands in traditional music, symphony orchestras, heritage centers, television programs, and festivals across the world. They are also each part of one of the best known families in Irish music.

It has been nearly five decades since the Clancy Brothers, white sweaters, theatrical humour, Irish ballads and all, burst upon the world stage. They brought Irish music into the folk music revival in the United States. Their work influenced folk revival superstars including Bob Dylan and Carolyn Hester, and brought Irish music out of the pubs and back rooms and in to the festivals and arts centers. Robbie was for a time part of the group with his uncles. Aoife and Donal at one time or another shared stages with their famous fathers (Bobby and Liam, respectively) as well.

Several years ago, the three musicians were invited to get together for a show called The Clancy Legacy. It was meant to be a one off thing, but it went over so well that there was demand for more gigs, and over time, calls of “when are the three of you going to record an album together?” The recording is well worth the time it took for them to get to it.


Side note: the production is just enough to frame the three artists’ music gracefully. Those who sit in include George Keith on fiddle, Erik Wendelken on bass, Derek Pisano on keyboards, and two artists you’ve met before here along the music road, Oisin McAuley on fiddle and Shannon Heaton on whistles and flute.

you may also wish to see

Music Road: Aoife Clancy: Silvery Moon
Music Road: Voices: Donal Clancy
Music Road: The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem at Carnegie Hall
Music Road: Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton

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A bouquet of Celtic love songs & tunes

A meditative guitar piece from Donal Clancy, a tune for a friend's wedding and a lively jig from Hanneke Cassel, and a set of reels meant for dancing from Matt and Shannon Heaton are the instrumentals in this set. Then there’s a song about transitions in loving in Western Highway from Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, a happy song that holds several meanings in Carrick a Rede from Cathie Ryan, and a swirl of emotion and music with words in Irish and English, in What’s Closest to the Heart also from Ryan, and an affirmation of love and hope in a song which blends Irish and African American tradition in Fisherman’s Lullaby from Matt and Shannon Heaton. For your Valentine themed listening, and beyond.






you may also wish to see
Voices: Donal Clancy

Lovers' Well: Matt & Shannon Heaton

Hanneke Cassel and Christopher Lewis: Calm the Raging Sea

Cathie Ryan: Songwriter

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The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem at Carnegie Hall

The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem In Person at Carnegie Hall



Saint Patrick’s Day forty six years ago: in March of 1963, John Kennedy was in the White House in America, the folk music revival was in full swing, and in Ireland, nobody had heard of Bloody Sunday or the Troubles. The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem played Carnegie Hall. The men from Carrick on Suir and the bard of Armagh found a happy, receptive audience for their songs, stories, and well planned banter. They were, you might say, the Riverdance, High Kings, and Celtic Women of their day all rolled into one, and indeed without the Clancys none of those mega quick hit on Irish culture events may have come to pass. Today it is sometimes forgotten what these men did , and how creative they were about it. “They were kind of innovators of Irish music in the sixties,” Donal Clancy, son of youngest Clancy Brother Liam and himself a professional musician, says. “They blended the old Irish folk song with what they were hearing in America at the time from the likes of the Kingston trio, and put a beat behind it, and added guitar and bass and banjo to some of the old traditional songs.” It was a sound that became as popular in Ireland as it was in America, as well.

This two disc project is the first time the entire 1963 concert has been released on record, though a wildly popular LP comprising eleven songs came out later in that year. This time around, though, there all the twenty eight songs in the order sung, as well as the talk and jokes and tales the men told between the songs, and the audience’s laughing appreciation of words and music. Times have changed, music has changed, and many of the songs that were so crisp with new arrangements then have been overdone and overlistened since But. as Liam Clancy writes in the notes, “How fresh these songs were then -- morning bread from the oven -- new lamps for old, making their magic.” That comes through very clearly here, on songs including Irish Rover, Kelly, the Boy from Killane, Galway Bay, and Brennan on the Moor.


two videos, from a PBS special in 1962, to go along

They did not sing Rising of the Moon on that night, but it’s a song I’ve known so long I don’t remember not knowing it. Oro Se Do Bheathe Bhaile, a song of hope, among other things, is what closes the collection on this project, and you may hear the audience singing along there, as the people do in this video.





you may also want to see

Voices: Cherish the Ladies

Aoife Clancy: Silvery Moon

Irish music, Irish landscape

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Winter music

Light and darkness, warmth and cold, connection and reflection, preparation and celebration, community and solitude, journey out and coming home -- all these are part of the work and the joy of winter. Music is a part of it all, as well -- but what if holiday music isn’t your sort of thing, or your tradition -- or maybe it all is, but you’d like a bit of non holiday music while still keeping the love, joy, peace, and friendship that resonate through the world at this season? It is, after all,the season of Advent in the Christian calendar, a season for preparation and reflection.

Take a listen...

Donal Clancy, Close to Home-- this is just the man an his guitar, a quiet, inviting set of traditional Irish music, familiar and unfamiliar, from an artist who is one of the mainstays of Irish guitar

Hanneke Cassel, Silver -- fire, grace, passion, kangaroos, jasmine flowers, and a tribute to the Red Sox., all framed in Scottish style fiddling.

Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas, In the Moment -- an inspired conversation between fiddle and cello on tunes in the Celtic tradition that nevertheless include trips to Pakistan, Tenerife, and San Francisco

Russ Barenberg, When at Last -- original guitar tunes ranging from jazz to Americana

So far, instrumental music. Now for the singers

many of them, on Hands Across the Water -- a A list roster of Americana and Celtic artists including Vince Gill, Tim O’Brien, and John Cowan, Altan, Flook, and Maura O’Connell, on songs of hope, faith, and healing

Eric Merrill, Western Star -- Celtic and American songs and tunes in a graceful tapestry that honors and connects both

Cathie Ryan, The Farthest Wave -- a journey through grief, loss, hope, and healing framed in Irish and American traditional songs, several very fine originals and on point covers that evoke the natural world as well as the human one

Carrie Newcomer, Betty's Diner: The Best of Carrie Newcomer
Betty’s Diner, and Newcomer’s songs, are both original work grounded in Americana.

you may also want to see
Music Road: first week in advent

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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.

Now playing: Danu: One Night Stand

One Night Stand



The lads -- and the one woman, singer Muireann nic Amhlaoibh -- of Danu do a very fine job of playing traditional music, covering contemporary tunes from the likes of Paul Brady, Tommy Sands, and Bob Dylan, and communicating something new and real about why they think tradition and contemporary music fit together, and are important. This dvd adds dimension to the work they’ve recorded on CD. There’s a full on concert at Vicar Street in Dublin, which gets at the fine and fluid interaction among Donal Clancy on guitar, Oisin McAuley on fiddle, nic Amhlaoibh, who plays tin whistle as well as sings, Tom Doorley on flutes and whistles, Eamon Doorley on fiddle, Donnchadh Gough on pipes and bodhran, and Benny McCarthy on button accordion. They do music from their CD When All is Said and Done, reels, jigs, and tunes as well as songs, and they add in some crowd favorites as well, among them A Stor Mo Chroí. There are out takes from the gig included as bonus tracks, along with an entirely forgettable road trip video. Really excellent additions though are interviews with the band members and others, including Liam Clancy and Des Dillon.

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Voices: Donal Clancy

The guitar is a relatively new instrument in traditional Irish music, and that's one of the things Donal Clancy enjoys about it. The tunes on his solo album Close to Home
are ones that he's been playing for years, "ones that I can't even really remember learning," he said. They were melodies he at first heard on the pipes or the fiddle or the whistle though, and found a way into them through guitar. "There's a lot of music for fiddle, or pipes, or whatever, in Irish music, so those people are always wanting to find something new, something that hasn't been recorded before," he said. "With guitar, all your tunes are there."

Those tunes include the slow air An Buachaill Caol Dubh/ The Dark Slender Boy, the hornpipe Kitty's Wedding, and the jig Helvic Head. Helvic Head is in southeastern Ireland, near where Clancy grew up in the Gaeltacht area of An Rinn. He was not born in Ireland though. "I was born in Alberta, in Calgary," he said. "My father was a musician and he was doing some work out there. We lived there for a couple of years, and then moved to New Hampshire, and then to Ireland when I was seven."

Donal's father is Liam Clancy. "He was one of the Clancy Brothers, who were kind of innovators of Irish music in the sixties"Donal said. "They blended the old Irish folk song with what they were hearing in America at the time from the likes of the Kingston trio, and put a beat behind it, and add guitar and bass and banjo to some of the old traditional songs." That take on the updating of tradition went over well on both sides of the Atlantic and paved the way for many popular groups and singers. Donal found music on his own though. Though his cousins include well respected singers Robbie O'Connell and Aoife Clancy. none of Donal's brothers and sisters play. "We were never pushed into it," he said. "So they went off and did other things. I don't think I ever had the thought of doing anything else."

When the family moved back to Ireland, Donal started learning the tin whistle, and then picked up the mandolin, but by the time he was about eleven, guitar had claimed his attention. "Most of my friends were in to music, so it was handy, we'd get together and play and try out things," he said. "It appealed to me, what you could do with the guitar in Irish music. You could be very creative. One chord change could change the whole mood of the tune. I was very interested in the possibilities of that, what you could do rather than just playing tunes, how you could add rhythmic accompaniment or harmonic colors."

That's an interest he has continued. He played in the trio Clancy, O'Connell, Clancy, with his dad Liam and his cousin Robbie "and it was great to see how they worked, you know, the veteran musicians, nothing could surprise them,"he recalled. He was one of the founders of the traditional band Danu, and also worked for some years with top Irish American group Solas, whose members have included Seamus Egan, John Williams, John Doyle, and Winifred Horan. "They're a hard working band with a lot of rehearsal, arrangements that are fairly complicated," he said, "and it was good because I'd never really done much preparation for a tour. It was great too because the band was held in high regard by the fans and it's exciting doing shows like that, with the audiences really into it." He continued to have his share of that experience in other circumstances, too: he joined fiddler Eileen Ivers' band for a time, and then, as he was thinking of making a change from that, he got the call that his old band Danu needed a guitarist. "It was like coming home again, bringing it all back home," he said, laughing.

He's still a mainstay of Danu, and at breaks in their schedule has done recording and road work with top artists including Kevin Crawford, Cherish the Ladies, Aoife Clancy, The Chieftains, Niall Vallely, and Cathie Ryan. All that may explain why it has taken him a while to get to making an album of his own: Close to Home is his solo debut. It might also help explain why he chose a rather quiet way to do it.

"I went about it the old fashioned way," he said, "went into a studio for a couple of days and played. Most of the tunes I just put down, left then the way I played them on the day, and I probably will never play them exactly the same way again." The result is thoughtful stories well told, clarity of tone and touch, and new light on old tunes. "I like to think about the mood of the piece, to have that come through, rather than make the tune fit my playing," he said. "No flashiness or anything like that, the arrangements are kind of straightforward, a relaxed and laid back tempo. I wanted to make a very traditional Irish sounding recording" As to what's next? "I have a bunch of tunes written," he said, "but I'm not sure I'd call them so traditionally Irish. You'll have to wait until the next record to find out what they sound like!"


listen to excerpts of the music on Close to Home

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