Happy St. Patrick's Day

March 17, 2009 at 12:30 PM

Celebrate St. Patrick's Day by listening to some great Irish traditional music.

Start with some Irish fire: Celtic Dueling Violins by Irish Woman.

Zoe Conway, fiddler, plays traditional music accompanied by a man playing the bodhran, a traditional Celtic drum.

The Chieftains and Leahy comprise a band with hot fiddlers who follow up with some hot Irish traditional dancing. (Sorry, there is no embedding to this video on youtube.)

The last recording of the great Irish fiddler Sean McGuire, who passed away in 2005, is a set of reels.

Turlough O'Carolan, a blind Irish harper, made his living by travelling from the home of one Irish noble family to another and composing music for them. Although he wrote music for the harp, today his tunes are played by many different solo instruments and bands. This recording features the Chieftains and the great Irish harpist Derek Bell.

One of the great things about Irish traditional music is that we can play, sing, and listen to it sing it all year long.