Browse Items (40 total)

LISTEN to the interview Jerry Lynch starts by telling his story in his own words. He reflects on how he learned music, his interest in different musical genres, and his time with the Kilfenora Céilí Band. He migrated to New York in October 1959 with…

Kevin McDermott plays three jigs on his three-row San Marino accordion.

LISTEN to the interviewSinger Jimmy O'Brien talks about his childhood in the Sliabh Luachra area of Co. Kerry. He recalls a vibrant social environment, with lots of music and dancing. Jimmy trained as a mechanic and, with his wife Mary, emigrated to…

LISTEN to the interviewJimmy O'Brien talks at greater length about some of the traditional customs he remembers from his youth: the musical instruments, fattening a pig for Christmas and making puddings, the meitheal, thrashings, American wakes, and…

LISTEN to the interview Kevin Burke was born in London to parents from Sligo. He began learning to play fiddle from around the age of seven and absorbed the music he heard played around him by migrant musicians. As a teenager he played regularly in…

LISTEN to the interviewKevin Henry embarks on a wide-ranging discussion of his youth in Ireland, years spent in England, and migration to Canada and then the United States. He eventually settled in Chicago, where he established a career as an iron…

LISTEN to the interview Kevin McDermott describes his childhood in Cavan town, joining the RAF, and eventual migration to London to join his family in 1956. Along the way he had an active musical life playing different musical styles on the…

Jerry Lynch plays marches on the accordion.

Photographs of the restored Meehan family home in Drimalost, Co. Donegal in the Blue Stack Mountains. The house was built in the late nineteenth century, reportedly with money sent home from America by Danny Meehan's grandfather Peter.

LISTEN to the interview Unlike many post-war Irish migrants, Mick Treacy from Mitchelstown, Co. Cork was more active on the English folk and jazz scenes than in the Irish music scene, though he did sing Irish songs with a group called the Munstermen.…