Here is an article I wrote on my blog about traditional Irish musical instruments.  I hope you like it.

There are many instruments used today in Traditional Irish Music. Many have evolved over centuries; some are ancient, while some are much…

My name is Anne Rynne, and I am a singer of songs.

I am a member of a ‘singing’ family and I was always very shy when asked to sing, so much so that for most of my life I didn’t really sing. About five years ago my son Davog, who lives in Lyon in the south of France, said to me, “Ma would you ever learn a couple of new songs and come over and join…

“If music be the food of love, play on,

give me excess of it that surfeiting, the

appetite may sicken, and so die.”…

LAST TIME ON THIS CONTINENT FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE!

(Leaving for a new assignment in Amman, Jordan, on February 9)

TUESDAY, JANUARY 17 - 7:30 P.M.

Scandinavia House - 58 Park Avenue

Songs from…

For music historians, the names Bing Crosby and Burl Ives conjure up many different thoughts, yet they had some things in common. They were born six years apart in the 1900s, and both came from very modest backgrounds. Both of them were…

Bill Ochs died on October 5^th after a long battle with a cancer he had largely kept to himself, hoping to tell everyone after he had defeated it.

He was a man whose life was music and the music he most loved -- and he loved many kinds of music -- was traditional Irish music.

He was an excellent player, first tin whistle player and ultimately an uilleann…

It was nine o’clock on a Sunday night when Johnny Og came to collect me, and it was raining—not one of those misty, soft rains, as is often the case on the west coast of Ireland, but one of those howling, unforgiving, relentless downpours that comes…

Wheels hit runway, and the Airbus lands on Irish soil, once again.The familiarity of the place is all around me. I make sure to go around the roundabouts on the left side and continue southeast towards Wexford and the artistic event that recently took place in that ancient city. The Wexford Festival is an annual event where opera singers and others get together in formal settings and fringe events to bring visual and musical…

This is the prologue to the following posts about my trip to Ireland to present my musical "The Last Torch" at the Celtic Fringe Festival, Sligo. I have been writing them backwards as…

I'm seeking some background on John Boyle O'Reilly and his life in Boston,…

It was Monday morning and I was having trouble packing. I woke with a brass band in my head, as Jim says.  After sitting in the shower for a while, I took a panadol, drank some water and went back to sleep. I woke an hour later and slowly started to get ready to…

(Sligo street art)

I was stranded for a second day in Grange. When I woke up, I had breakfast on my mind and enjoyed an Irish breakfast with a beautiful view. I had to be out by 11 a.m. as the painter was coming and the…

With her luxurious platinum locks, enormous honey-colored eyes and a petulant mouth, Elizabeth Conway (pictured) has the appeal of a pedigreed Persian cat in heat. By looking at her head shot, one would surmise that this girl, both aristocratic and…

The following Q&A with Dublin-born actor Barry Ward (Jimmy Gralton in Sixteen Films' biopic "Jimmy's Hall") is part of the studio's Production Notes for the film, shot in the story's actual locales in County Leitrim. The notes, assembled for…

I ran across a man and his daughter lost in the 19th century history of Buffalo, Dr. John Cronyn (pictured) and Juliana Cronyn. They were extraordinary people by any stretch of the imagination.

John Cronyn was born in Blackrock, a suburb of Cork City, in 1825 and moved with his parents to Toronto. He finished first in his medical…

As I watched Ken Loach's newest film, “Jimmy’s Hall,” I was struck by how, as had also been true in “The Wind That Shakes the Barley,” Paul Laverty’s writing and Loach’s directing of that writing is free of pretension.

Loach (pictured, foreground) doesn’t need…

The following Q&A with Sixteen Films Director Ken Loach, in two parts, is part of Sixteen Films' Production Notes for its biopic "Jimmy's Hall." The notes, assembled for the produceers by Benji Wilson, were presented to the entertainment…