Le chéile chun ath-nuachaint an Náisiún
Tony MacMahon was born in 1939 and grew up in the Turnpike in Ennis. His father, PJ, came from Kilmaley, not far from Miltown Malbay, and an area steeped in traditional music and dancing. His mother played the concertina. Joe Cooley, who worked in Ennis for several years was a regular visitor to the house….
An Irishman’s Diary FRANK McNALLY, IRISH TIMES, 25th JUNE 2011 I STAND TO be corrected, and no doubt I will be. But it is my belief that the River Sullane in West Cork is very unusual – perhaps even unique – among Irish waterways, in being male. You wouldn’t know to look at it that…
Born January 5th, 1944, Louis Stewart began his musical career in the sixties as a member of the Dublin jazz scene. In 1968 he received an invitation to the Montreux Jazz Festival together with the Jim Doherty Quartet. He came away with the pressaward for “Outstanding European Soloist of the Festival”. The following year–again in…
Up in that Pantheon inhabited by the biggest selling recording artistes of all time in Ireland, rubbing shoulders with Bono and the Boys, you might be surprised to bump into Phil Coulter. You shouldn’t be! It’s now twenty years since the distinctive sound of Tranquility, featuring Phil’s piano and orchestra, first seduced the whole…
Allan MacDonald was born in 1956 and raised in the Gaelic-speaking community of Glenuig in a family that includes two equally famous piping MacDonald brothers: Iain and Dr. Angus. Allan was taught first by Pipe Major John MacKenzie of Campbelltown at Queen Victoria School in Dunblane, and later by Bob Nicol and Roddy MacDonald of…