You’re favourite Irish Musicians not from Ireland

Who would be you’re favourite trad musicians who were not born in Ireland? There are a lot of good musicians to choose from and to sort it by instrument would probably be the best idea but give us an insight anyway. Here would be mine.

Fiddle: John McEvoy
Banjo: Mick O’Connor and Angelina Carberry
Flute: Catherine McEvoy

I can’t think of my favourite players from the likes of Accordion and Concertina at the moment. Probably John Williams but yous can give me some more ideas.

Joannie Madden,Kathleen Collins ,Josephine Keegan,the late Andy McGann to name but a few.

fiddle: Lizzy
flute: Ottery
viola: Michael Gill

guitar: Janek

Johnny Cunningham, Phil Cunningham, Natalie MacMaster,
Buddy MacMaster



Mary (no not me, that’s just my name) 🙂

Well it’s got to be … Janek

;)

Lizzy x

John Carty

Liz Carroll gets my vote. Then there’s Randal Bays, Dennis Cahill…….

Andy McGann, Joe Derrane, John Williams, Liz Carroll and Randal Bays also, I agree.

Sounds like the Chicago mob.

Liz Carroll (fiddle) and John WIlliams (box) get my my vote.

Kevin Crawford
Mike McGoldrick

Oh John Carty. He’s good too!

Andy Irvine

Brendan Mulvihill and Seamus Egan

Liz Carroll, in terms of the big names.

Liz Carroll gets a “WHOOP WHOOP” from me!

Who is Liz Carroll? Serious question.

Just looked it up on Google. Forgot I was on a computer.

http://www.lizcarroll.com/

I certainly don’t know everyone’s geneology, but it seems many (most?) of the players listed so far are of Irish descent. What about players of Irish music who neither live in Ireland nor are of Irish descent?

Benny McHugh, Kane O‘Rourke, Mick Mulvey, Mick O’Connor.

oops - that doesn’t answer tintin’s question

Liz Carroll, John Joe Kelly, Ben Stephenson, Adrian Barker

That’s my 2 cents worth.

Jeremy

Among those not yet mentioned, Mary Rafferty, Patrick Ourceau, Willie Kelly, Patty Furlong, Benedict Kohler, Dana Lyn, Tina Lech, Jesse Smith, Brian Conway, Billy McComiskey, Eliot Grasso, Jerry O’Sullivan, Patrick Mangan, Laura Byrne, etc., etc.

Surprised noboy´s mentioned…….
Kevin Burke.

Kevin Burke Good one Was John joe Kelly born in England

Flute: Kevin Crawford, John Skelton
Pipes: Benedict Kohler, Jerry O’Sullivan
Fiddle: Patrick Ourceau, Kevin Burke

all time favourite not born in Ireland would have to be Duncan Cameron. An excellent multi instrumentalist and brilliant composer.

Joannie Madden, Seamus Egan and Michael McGoldrick

john whelan

Good call on Benedict- then there’s me on pipes and fiddle 🙂

Janek, you’ve just become my favourite guitarist (you always were really!)
Why has no-one mentioned Zina?

It’s because Zina is a goddess, and by not being a mortal she does not fulfil the entry requirements for this competition.

Mark, your gorale hat is gathering dust in my room! We need to get together sometime soon, before I fall victim to asthma (or guilty conscience).

Have you really got us the Gorale Hat - that’s fantastic!

Jerry Holland, cuz he is a brilliant musician and a great teacher and just a really sweet guy!

oh whoops, he’s not really irish….oh well

Hot players not irish or irish descent, how about Tony Demarco, the fiddler from NYC?

Someone mentioned Willie Kelly…I thought he’s from Clare??

Oops, my bad…another from the Bronx…plays Clare style though

bodhran: Rolf Wagels
fiddle: Gudrun Walther
flute: Claus Steinort
guitar: Pierre Bensusan

I’m not trying to wave the flag for Old Europe - I just don’t know most of the Americans that got a mention (except Zina and Liz Carroll, of course)

I think Willie Kelly is from New Jersey. I didn’t notice anything in his accent that would indicate otherwise the two times I met him, and I know he lives there (and has for some years). His wife, Siobhan, is from Clare. Oh…just saw your followup…could be from the Bronx originaly for all I know. Only a few miles from New Jersey, and the accent isn’t all that different.

Jersey and Bronx accents are not similar, though much depends on where in jersey one is from (aside from class issues).

As we have a lot of american sessioneers here I would like to balance out a bit with more people from the continent:

Pipes: Peter Laban, Patrick Molard
Flute: Jean-Michel Veillon , Youenn Le Berre

Tanya Lee Terahoshi? 🙂

youre right - jersey accent is similar to the rest of the south of england

The late Tony Cuffe.

England? Is that what they call that place to the east of Ireland?

Yes; it contains quite a few ITM players, with and without Irish ancestry, who have carried off Championships over there on one instrument or another. I won’t name any, to spare their blushes and mine, but I know where some of them lurk.

“The late Tony Cuffe”

I’m not sure how you work that one out. He was a Scottish musician whose material was predominantly Scottish, although he could indeed play an Irish tune. Sadly missed.

And I wonder what the ITM scene is like in Germany these days. In the 70s there was a craze there for Irish music; I wonder what happened there next. There must be some pretty proficient players and bands there now. Have any wowed local audiences / won prizes in Ireland itself?

Claus Steinort, as mentioned above by Kuec, and his band Cara are German musicians who have wowed local audiences in Ireland. Claus is also featured on Wooden Flute Obsession Vol. 3.

There’s loads of great players in Denmark too and Scandinavia , in general.

Look out for this young lady(She occasionally posts on the site). She is an absolute treasure.

https://thesession.org/recordings/1281

Scotsman, that’s true of Tony Cuffe’s recorded work and performances. However here in the Boston area where he lived since the late 80’s he ran a traditional session class at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education where he taught tunes to many people for many years. About 90% of what he taught was from the Irish tradition and he was a gateway into the music for myself and many others.

If not for him, I might never had any exposure to Scottish music and how much pooper my life would have been for that!!

Ooops, that should have read poorer but the sentiment is pretty much the same.

That’s interesting to know as I lost track of Tony and his work after he moved to The States in the late eighties. I hadn’t realised he was so heavily involved in Irish music there.
Thanks for that info.

Denis Kersual
Breton, uillean piper, living in Toulouse.
Played, and recorded with, Patrick Ourceau when they lived in Paris.

andy irvine, charles o connor, the numerous members of fairport convention (not irish but similar). amoungst others

i also saw solas live and enjoyed that immeansly.

Have any of ye heard carty!!!