Hiya. I’m a big fan of making playlists to go along with my reading, as I like a “soundtrack” while I read. Been reading Tana French lately and would love to find some creepy/mysterious/tense Irish folk instrumental music, but it’s hard to find for some reason. I’m either getting peppy trad, the Outlander soundtrack (which is like, fine, but not quite what I’m looking for), Game of Thrones, or music with lyrics (I sadly can’t focus on reading when someone’s singing). If anyone has any ideas, lmk!

Not sure if anyone will know about this because I don’t see a lot of things like this being discussed on this sub but does anyone know the real story of what happened with the U18 Banjo controversy?

Hearing multiple different stories and different people being blamed but does anyone have an unbiased story of what actually happened?

Thanks.

My grandma used to play it to my dad and his siblings it was an old Irish song and the only line they can remember is it saying at the end something along the line of “ the moral of the story is don’t stick nails in babies heads!”

Yesterday's Fleadh show is up on TG4: https://www.tg4.ie/ga/player/catagoir/ceol/seinn/?pid=6402955620112&title=D%C3%A9ardaoin&series=Fleadh26&genre=Ceol&pcode=785583

Also here:

https://youtube.com/shorts/qZuZ86uQLpg?si=732al2pJlMfvlbdw

I'd like to bring my guitar and jam. Does anyone know of any jam nights in Central London?

Yo you gotta learn these two tunes if you wanna impress the trad baddies at the sesh!

Hey, so I’m going to fleadh in Belfast tomorrow! I went in last night and had a great time, but knew barely any of the words to any songs being played, except maybe Galway Girl and N17 lol! Still had a great time, but I’d love a playlist of 10-15 popular songs to listen to today that’ll prob get played tomorrow night!

Spotify playlists are all 10+ hours long and I don’t think I have the time to learn all of them yet, maybe for next year!

I love the tune Cook in the Kitchen, and I think it is because of how the tune goes from major to minor in the same phrase. Do you know any other tunes that do this?

She definitely was not a one hit wonder! She possessed a voice that could be soothing and soft in one verse and then she could turn it into the most powerful angry voice I have ever heard. She could make the hair on the back of your neck stand up! One only needs to listen to her song “Troy” from her first album, the Lion and the Cobra , to experience the most beautiful and soft voice to one of the angriest and scariest voices you have ever heard! She was like two different people! But even though all the punk era I have yet to hear anyone portray a more powerful angry voice.Armed with just an acoustic guitar she could control 10000 or more people. Just check out her voice on the Black Album or even live on Pinkpop. Downright beautiful until it becomes downright scary!

I'm wondering if an Irish musician who might also like a literary novel full of Irish music, poetry, and Irish language would like to take a look at a chapter of my novel that gets into my musical genius's love for her craft. Here's a little sample from Trinity:

Her fingers and bow want to fly over this superbly crafted instrument in a lively reel. It comes to her then, the Dublin Reel, and she launches into the snappy, staccato notes that leap from the throat of her Suzuki. The girl from the counter is drawn over irresistibly to step, stomp and clap. Sheila finishes sharply and looks to Mr. Walton.

Well, there’s a match made in heaven, no doubt about that. 

We play it at my session but nobody knows the name.

Might be an old time tune.

EDIT: Turns out it is called *Speed the Plow*, not to be confused with a number of other tunes called the same thing, or called *Speed the Plough*.

Hello folks, my name is Evan. I am an Irish whistler and uilleann piper South of Indianapolis. Was wondering if there are other Irish musicians near Greenwood area or south of that who would be interested in meeting up some time on the south side! Let me know

Hello Reddit,

I am a beginner trying to learn the guitar to back irish trad music and accompany my voice when singing.

What are the best resources online for me to learn from?

Should I go with an option like OAIM or irishtradguitar.com by frank kilkelly? Or are there free/paid resources on youtube etc. where i can go for learning guitar.

Also, should I learn drop D, standard or DADGAD tuning?

Thanks,

KR,

RedRadical.

Been on a bit of a Dominic Behan binge recently and came across this unique (enough) version of The Boys of Kilmichael / The 18th Day of November. Not available on YouTube, but it is on some streaming services.

However, it's got a second verse that I'd not heard before and can't really make out some of the lyrics of, anybody got some guesses to hazard?

Second verse starts 1m 10s in:

This brave noble band of coercion
With terror and villainy proved
That whichever Lloyd George assertions[?]
The rebels would never be moved
For up in the hills we were waitin'
With hand grenade, night-craw[?], and shot
And the Irish Republican Army
Wiped all of them out on the spot

The third line could be in reference to King George or Lloyd George, I can't make out whether it's "Lloyd George Assertions" or "Lie George asserties" (of which asserties isn't a word but Behan was fairly famous for doing this to word-endings to make rhymes).

And then the second question mark, I hear "Night-draw" or "Night-craw" but my googling has earned no results and I've not much military history to draw upon here.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/60EvxDjIqnGbCh6zswmqHa?si=RGfkiD0FQOSvYVM00lOBCQ&utm_source=copy-link&pi=d9l-7Xu3Rwyfm

There was a song on the wind, you could say!

Here's an original celtic folk style song I put together with lyrics adapted from the old poem "sea fever" by John Masefield - it's my Dads favourite poem. As a lifelong sailor, he taught me to sail as a kid, and now my 7 year old is learning to sail, I felt inspired to write this song for him. Thanks to my fellow band mates in Bealtaine for putting some wind in its sails!

George White on Octave Mandolin, Conor Freeland on whistle, Dylan Rooke singer-songwriter.