Oirialla

A lovely new album by Gerry (Fiddle) O’Connor, Gilles le Bigot, Nuala Kennedy and Martin Quinn.

The album focusses on music from the land of Oriel (or Oirialla/Airghialla) in South Ulster encompassing the mountains of North Louth and South Armagh, stretching westward to East Monaghan.

A lovely collection of unusual tunes and songs, played as well as one would expect. Many of the tunes are unusual and most seem to come from Luke Donellan’s collection “Dance Music of Oriel”. The tunes have an interesting flavour, with clear Scottish overtones but equally clearly Irish, and well worth learning as many are little known.