With their Northern Ireland-style twin fiddling and accordion melodies accented by acoustic guitar and bouzouki, Altan has grown into one of the top traditional bands in Ireland. The inspiration for Altan was sparked when Donegal-born fiddler and vocalist Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh met Belfast-born flute player Frankie Kennedy. Ní Mhaonaigh had... [+] Read More

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The musical traditions of Scotland are fused with the dynamic drive and electronic instrumentation of contemporary music by Capercaille (pronounced: Kap-ir-kay-lee). While their initial repertoire focused on traditional tunes collected from Christine Primrose, Flora MacNeill and Na h'Oganaich, the group has increasingly incorporated modern... [+] Read More

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Clannad bridged the gap between traditional Celtic music and pop. Usually, their results were an entrancing, enchanting form of pop that managed to fuse the disparate elements together rather seamlessly. Such fusions have earned the band an international cult of fans.

Taking their name from the Gaelic word for "family," Clannad... [+] Read More

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A member of one of Ireland's most respected singing families, Dolores Keane is the possessor of some of the sweetest tones in Celtic music. The first vocalist for Irish band De Danann, Keane has sung with the Chieftains and Planxty as well as with her husband, John Faulkner, and on her own.

Keane's musical career began at a very... [+] Read More

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Honey-voiced Eddi Reader has been around several blocks, musically speaking. A native of Glasgow, she has been well known and loved in Britain for years. Oddly enough, Reader jumped right into her performing career in the early '80s by travelling throughout Europe with a circus troupe. Shortly after, she decided to settle in London and become a... [+] Read More

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Mazz O'Flaherty is a musician and artist, and was born and is now living in Dingle Town. She is one of Dingle's best known musicians, having played in the local family pub, O'Flaherty's in the Holyground in Dingle from an early age.
Mazz herself is a songwriter and one of her compositions "Yesterday's people" has been recorded by the Furey... [+] Read More

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Rita Connolly's concert performances have been rare events, but the warm soprano vocals of the Dublin-born songstress have been featured in stage plays, films and more than 20 albums, including two solo recordings: Rita Connolly in 1991, and Valparaiso in 1993. Her interpretation of the Shaun Davey-composed epic tale of an Irish pirate,... [+] Read More

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The original traditional Irish folk band, as far as anyone who came of age in the 1970s or 1980s is concerned, is the Chieftains. Their sound, built largely on Paddy Moloney's pipes, is otherworldly, almost entirely instrumental, and seems as though it comes out of another age of man's history. That they became an international phenomenon in the... [+] Read More

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Nearly three decades since they first came together during informal sessions at O'Donoghue's Pub in Dublin, The Dubliners remain one of the most influential of Ireland's traditional folk bands. Unlike their counterparts, The Clancy Brothers, The Dubliners have never strayed from the raw looseness of the pub scene. According to Dirty Linen,... [+] Read More

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The Tannahill Weavers, who started as a band 20 years ago, occupy a unique position among the groups on the Scottish folk scene. Stalwarts Roy Gullane and Phil Smillie have surrounded themselves with a rotating cast of great musicians. Their music, which uses the Highland bagpipe, flute, and fiddle as its melodic core, is tighter, more intense,... [+] Read More

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Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill is one of the most influential female vocalists in the history of Irish music. In addition to a superb solo album, Triona, released in Ireland in 1975 and the United States in 1984, Ní Dhomhnaill's high-pitched vocals and keyboard playing have been an integral element of Skara Brae, the Bothy Band, Touchstone, Nightnoise,... [+] Read More

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