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Dear Old Erin’s Isle: Irish Traditional Music From America

By Various Artists


  1. The Noisy Curlew
    Farewell To Erin
  2. Miss Drummond Of Perth
    The Moneymusk
  3. Drying Out
    Crush Cars
    The Lost Indian
    The Laurel Tree
  4. The Gold Ring
    Brendan McMahon’s
  5. Horse Keane’s
    The Rath Cairn
    The Charleston
  6. Gan Ainm
    The Wee Bag Of Spuds
    Hold The Reins
  7. The Derry
  8. An Buachaillin Ban
  9. The Moneymusk
    Drowsy Maggie
    Gan Ainm
  10. The Kilnamona
    Hayes’
    Old John Williams
  11. The Tarbolton
    Dan Sullivan’s
    Be Off
  12. Sean McGlynn’s
    Sean McGlynn’s #2
  13. The Piper’s Despair
    Julia Delaney’s
  14. The Humours Of Whiskey
    Take The Bull By The Horns
  15. A Stor Mo Chroi
    The New Mown Meadow
    The Morning Dew
  16. That’s Right, Too
    The Leading Role
  17. The Nervous Man
    The Gosling
    Paddy Shannon’s
  18. James McMahon’s
    April’s Fool
    Seamus Cooley’s
  19. I Had A Bonnet Trimmed With Blue
    The Ballyoran
  20. The Swaggering
    The London Lasses

Six comments

Concert Series

This album presents music from the 1992 Cork University Traditional Music Festival. This same festival series (known as Eigse na Laoi) has produced at least one other fantastic recording: “The Gathering” (1995), released on RealWorld in 1997. According to that CD’s liner notes, the festivals have followed the themes “Fiddlesticks” (1991), “Dear Old Erin’s Isle” (1992), “Cape Breton Island” (1993), “Across the Waters” (1994), and “The Gathering” (1995). Anyone know of any other albums to come out of the festivals, or what’s happened to the festivals since 1995?

CD #3 of 4: “Dear Old Erin’s Isle: Irish Traditional Music from America”

Nimbus Records NI 5350, 1992 ~ the individual recording

The 4 CD Set, Nimbus Records NI 1752:
"From a Distant Shore:
Irish Tranditional Music from Donegal, England, America & Cape Breton Island"
Recorded live at the Cork University Traditional Music Festivals

The 4 CD Set: "From a Distant Shore:
Irish Tranditional Music from Donegal, England, America & Cape Breton Island"
Recorded live at the Cork University Traditional Music Festivals
Nimbus Records NI 1752

1.) “Fiddle Sticks: Irish Traditional Music From Donegal” (NI 5320, 1991)
https://thesession.org/recordings/202

2.) “Across the Waters: Irish Traditional Music from England” (NI 5415, 1994)
https://thesession.org/recordings/843

3.) this recording…

4.) “Traditional Music from Cape Breton Island” (NI 5383, 1993)
https://thesession.org/recordings/1080

“Dear Old Erin’s Isle: Irish Traditional Music From America”

The only CD of this set of 4 to be on the edge of giving it away or dropping it in recycling is #2, the English offering, just too sloppy to please, but there are a few nice tracks on that. Then there’s this one, #3, and when I saw the opening track, Eileen Ivers and Seamus Egan, and also saw Liz Carroll was going to give air to a set of her tunes, well, my heart sank, not another. I do recognize their talents, but in that is also their tendency to go OTT and spoil the music with too much cutesey dross. They didn’t disappoint and gave the punters their usual overdose. Things started out quite nice actually, but by the time Eileen and Seamus got to “Farewell to Erin” I knew I was going to be glad to see that butchery come to an end.
Fortunately a balance was struck and a surprise, dear Tom Doherty on the single row and a pair of highland flings given a nice simple and beautifully rough treatment, a breath of fresh Eire… But then, along comes Liz Carroll with her usual, but that passed too. I am a fan of the character of the two ladies, Eileen and Liz, if not really their personal excesses with the music and melody crafting, though there is the rare pearl amongst the ~…

Pleasure was to continue with more of Tom Doherty, Kevin Burke, John Williams, Jimmy Keane ~ yes, a piano accordion player, see I’m not completely bigoted ~ he’s brilliant, lovely stuff ~ but I’ll continue with the list of appreciations ~ Joe Shannon, Seamus Connolly, Brendan Mulvihill, Billy McComiskey ~ in other words, the bulk of those present, lovely stuff, very satisfying. So, out of 20 tracks only a few that were irritating, not counting some daft compositions here and there. That ain’t bad for a ‘various artists’ burn… For what pleasure is there I’d recommend it, but our favourites of these four CDs remain numbers 1 & 4, Donegal and Cape Breton, all biases admitted… 😉

Re: “Dear Old Erin’s Isle: Irish Traditional Music From America”

The tracks & musicians:

_1. ) Eileen Ivers - fiddle & Seamus Egan - flute

_2. ) Tom Doherty - melodeon

_3. ) Liz Carroll - fiddle

_4. ) Kevin Burke - fiddle & John Williams - button accordion

_5. ) Jimmy Keane - piano accordion

_6. ) Seamus Egan - flute

_7. ) Joe Shannon - uilleann pipes & John Williams - concertina

_8. ) Seamus Connolly - fiddle

_9. ) Tom Doherty - melodeon

10. ) John Williams - concertina

11. ) Brendan Mulvihill - fiddle

12. ) Billy McComiskey - button accordion

13. ) Eileen Ivers - fiddle

14. ) Tom Doherty - melodeon

15. ) John Williams - button accordion

16. ) Liz Carroll - fiddle

17. ) Liz Carroll - fiddle & Billy McComiskey - button accordion

18. ) Jimmy Keane - piano accordion

19. ) Tom Doherty - melodeon

20. ) Joe Shannon - uilleann pipes, John Williams - concertina, & Seamus Connolly - fiddle