Tamalin [1] is a family-based band from west Belfast, Northern Ireland, who originally began playing Irish traditional music in the early 1980s under the name The McSherrys. Toward the end of the 1980s they were joined by long term friend Kevin Dorris on bouzouki and subsequently changed the name of the group to Tamalin.
In the early 1990s the band became close friends with legendary drummer and percussionist Dave Early who had settled in Belfast and was playing with Mary Black. When not touring with Mary, Dave worked closely with Tamalin playing concerts and experimenting in the studio. An album was shaping and in July 1997 Rhythm and Rhyme [2] was released on the Grapevine label.
In October 1996 Dave Early died in a car accident [3] outside Dublin and never saw the release of the band's debut album. [4] John McSherry had a parallel career for many years, being a member of Donal Lunny's Coolfin as well as co-founding the band Lúnasa along with Michael McGoldrick.
In 2016 The McSherrys featured in Season 2 (episode 6) of the TG4 series ‘Ceol an Chlann’ [5]
Waylander are a Northern Irish folk metal band influential in the realms of Celtic metal. Formed in 1993, the band blends traditional Irish folk with 1990s heavy metal.
Energy Orchard were a guitar-based rock band of the late 1980s and early 1990s, from Belfast, Northern Ireland. Fronted by Bap Kennedy, their style drew heavily on the influence of Van Morrison and other rhythm and blues acts, but incorporated traditional elements of Irish folk music. The band emerged from the remnants of one other Belfast-based punk/new wave band, 10 Past 7.
Flook is an Anglo-Irish band playing traditional-style instrumental music, much of it penned by the band themselves. Their music is typified by extremely fast, sometimes percussive, flute and whistle atop complex guitar and bodhrán rhythms. Flook is made up of Brian Finnegan, Sarah Allen, Ed Boyd and John Joe Kelly.
Battlefield Band were a Scottish traditional music group. Founded in Glasgow in 1969, they have released over 30 albums and undergone many changes of lineup. As of 2010, none of the original founders remain in the band.
De Dannan is an Irish folk music group. It was formed 1975 by Frankie Gavin (fiddle), Alec Finn, Johnny "Ringo" McDonagh (bodhrán) and Charlie Piggott (banjo) as a result of sessions in Hughes's Pub in An Spidéal, County Galway, with Dolores Keane (vocals) subsequently being invited to join the band. The fiddler Mickey Finn (1951–1987) is also acknowledged to have been a founder member.
Andrew Kennedy Irvine is an Irish folk musician, singer-songwriter, and a founding member of Sweeney's Men, Planxty, Patrick Street, Mozaik, LAPD and Usher's Island. He also featured in duos, with Dónal Lunny, Paul Brady, Mick Hanly, Dick Gaughan, Rens van der Zalm, and Luke Plumb. Irvine plays the mandolin, mandola, bouzouki, harmonica, and hurdy-gurdy.
Ride On is an album by Irish folk singer Christy Moore, released in 1984. Its title track remains one of his most popular songs. A number of songs relate the actions of those involved in political struggles, or those affected by those struggles; such as "Viva la Quinte Brigada" which is concerned with the Irish contingent amongst the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War; or "El Salvador" dealing with the civil war in that country in the 1980s. Other songs deal with Irish history – "The City of Chicago", about emigration to America during the Irish famines of the late 1840s; "Back Home in Derry" written by Bobby Sands about the transportation to Australia of convicts; and "Lisdoonvarna" celebrating a music festival that took place annually in that town until the early 1980s.
Dónal Lunny is an Irish folk musician and producer. He plays left-handed guitar and bouzouki, as well as keyboards and bodhrán. As a founding member of popular bands Planxty, The Bothy Band, Moving Hearts, Coolfin, Mozaik, LAPD, and Usher's Island, he has been at the forefront of the renaissance of Irish traditional music for over five decades.
Déanta is an Irish traditional music band from Northern Ireland. The name of the band is the Irish word for done or made. The band was formed in the late 1980s in County Antrim and played until 1997, then regrouped in 2008. The band comprised members of the Irish traditional music scene in Ireland. They signed to Green Linnet and released three albums which blended traditional tunes and songs with arrangements sometimes veering towards a contemporary setting.
Lúnasa is a traditional Irish music group, named after Lughnasadh, an ancient harvest festival. They tour and perform internationally, and have recorded a number of albums of both traditional and contemporary Irish instrumental music.
Rawlins Cross is a Celtic band that formed in 1988 in Atlantic Canada. With members from Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Ontario, the band took its name from an intersection in St. John's, Newfoundland.
Old Blind Dogs is a Scottish musical group which plays traditional Scottish folk music and Celtic music, with influences from rock, reggae, jazz, blues, and Middle Eastern music rhythms.
Paul McSherry is a guitarist from Northern Ireland who began playing in 1982, aged 14. He was inspired by two guitarists from his native West Belfast, Maurice McHugh and Mark Kane, and was self-taught on DAGDAD tuning.
Kevin Burke is an Irish master fiddler considered one of the finest living Irish fiddlers. For nearly five decades he has been at the forefront of Irish traditional music and Celtic music, performing and recording with the groups The Bothy Band, Patrick Street, and the Celtic Fiddle Festival. He is a 2002 recipient of a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Mícheál Ó Domhnaill was an Irish singer, guitarist, composer, and producer who was a major influence on Irish traditional music in the second half of the twentieth century. He is remembered for his innovative work with Skara Brae, the first group to record vocal harmonization in Irish language songs, and The Bothy Band, one of the most influential groups in Irish traditional music. His reputation was enhanced by a successful collaboration with master fiddler Kevin Burke, and his work with the Celtic groups Relativity and Nightnoise, which achieved significant commercial and critical acclaim.
Otherworld is an album by Lúnasa that was released 1999 on Green Linnet Records. It is the band's second major release. Although the album displays the band’s traditional Celtic sound, it features techniques and styles unusual to the genre, such as occasional double-tracking recording and occasional instances of instruments that differ from Celtic music, such as cello, electric bass and flügelhorn, leading Allmusic to say the album "yields a sound that is unique to the group and yet clearly in touch with tradition". The album has been described as innovative, with The Georgia Straight citing several tracks' usage of multiple woodwinds as an example.
The Merry Sisters of Fate is an album by Irish Celtic band Lúnasa that was released in 2001 on Green Linnet Records. It is the band's third major release, and first with pipe player Cillian Vallely. The record is characterised as particularly rhythm-heavy and showcasing the band experimenting more with rhythm and sound than on previous records, and features numerous instruments atypical to Celtic music, such as lap steel guitar, piano, harmonium and clarinet, played by a number of guest musicians. Rhythm, melody and strings vary as the foreground of the music, which largely consists of Irish tunes.
Irish traditional music is a genre of folk music that developed in Ireland.
"My Lagan Love" is a song to a traditional Irish air collected in 1903 in northern Donegal.
Dónal O'Connor is an Irish multi-instrumentalist, producer and television presenter from Ravensdale, County Louth, Ireland. He is a member of Belfast-based Irish traditional groups Ulaid & At First Light.