Back to the Starry Lane

Fintan Vallely on flute and Mark Simos on guitar. This is a reissue of a recording from the early 90s:
https://fintanvallely.bandcamp.com/album/back-to-the-starry-lane

From the liner notes:
“This is a collection of old and new, Irish and Scottish Traditional music, a personal selection of Fintan’s which arose out of his playing in Scotland with singer Tim Lyons in the 1980s. The music looks both backwards and forwards - beginning in the 18th century Scottish composition period which had tunes that we still play as Traditional music today. Included too are items of the more standard twentieth century Irish piping repertoire, some from Co. Clare, branching into 1950s-onward new composition. The old Scottish material comes from the 1765 Neil Stewart Collection of Scottish Music. Fintan had a privileged glimpse of Sutherland fiddler Charlie Menzies’ copy of the manuscript - the only one in existence outside of the George V Library in Edinburgh - while on tour with Daithí Sproule in 1989. These tunes were chosen for their similarity in style and ‘feel’ to Irish music, something which suggests that older Irish and Scottish music were once stylistically closer than they are today. A pointer to this is The Duke of Atholl’s Rant which has been played in Ireland all through the 1900s as The Humours of Ballyconnell, as is the shorter variant of it Miss Betty Plummer’s, which has been played by Co. Antrim bands, and the second part of Miss Chalmers’, which is close to the B parts of The Starry Lane to Monaghan and older 4/4 tunes such as The Ships are Sailing, The Connemara Stockings and The Ebb Tide.”

A lot of the same tracks can be found on the recording The Starry Lane To Monaghan:
https://thesession.org/recordings/2069