[Little map of Ireland] [Triple Spiral] Irish and Celtic Thingies
Music

Most recently modified on $Date: 2008/01/23 02:40:14 $ (GMT)

MUSIC

Thistle And Shamrock, etc.

I maintain a list of NPR (National Public Radio in the USA) radio stations that carry the Thistle and Shamrock program of celtic (Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Manx, Breton, Cornish, etc) music hosted by Fiona Ritchie. Corrections welcome and invited. NPR also has some information on the program. Please note: to my knowledge, Fiona Ritchie does not have an e-mail address.

Gerard Manning has another radio stations list that has everything but the Thistle and Shamrock in terms of celtic-type music programs. It had about 50 entries as of June 13, 1994 and probably has lots more now.

As mentioned at the top of this page, Gerard runs the Ceolas site on the web. LOTS of good info on Irish/Celtic music here. Check it out!

For readers on the other side of the big puddle, I picked up the following information from a post on soc.culture.celtic by Craig Cockburn:

Scots Gaelic radio can be picked up throughout most of the UK, including the south of England. BBC Scotland Radio nan Gaidheal 810 MW : Mon-Fri 9pm-10pm. Also, Traveling folk is on 8-10pm on Saturdays and Celtic Connections with Fiona Ritchie is on 10pm to midnight on Saturdays. Both of these programmes are on 810 MW as well as 92.4-94.7 FM.

Murphy's Massive (Irish) Midi Page

Nice title, don't you think? The author is no relative as far as we both can tell... I can't say it better than the author, so here's what Gary Lawrence Murphy said: "I couldn't find it, so I built it myself --- and if someone can do it better, then I'll gladly hand it over ... I am placing my Irish music MIDI files online". Gary was offline for a while but is back now.

The Contemplator

Speaking of MIDI, though even if you don't care for it but do enjoy Irish and Folk music, do yourself a favour and have a peek at The Contemplator. This is exactly the sort of resource I like: plenty of very useful and informative content (be sure to check out the pages on my favourite Irish Composer, Turlough O'Carolan), and uses the web to maximum advantage. Other people have "cute" MIDI files embedded in their pages [and I have to admit; I download and play them offline, I deliberately don't have a midi plugin even thought there are at least two for Linux], but in the case of these pages, the embedding is functional and useful.

Dirty Linen

No, not the kind you throw in a washing machine! Dirty Linen is a net resource that provides, among other things, a calendar of what's going on in terms of Irish music in the US: concerts, festivals, etc. There used to be a concert listings service at Xerox's PARC web server but things have moved around and I couldn't figure out if it had a new location or was just gone. For info about Folk Music events, see the anonymous ftp server at PSU.

The Digital Tradition database of lyrics is a fantastic way of finding the lyrics to that song you can almost remember. It'll even play some of them for you. Thanks to Jon Berger for reminding me...

And more...

(March 2, 1997: music) Kathryn Chadbourne at Harvard has a page that tells the story of Etain. Although it's promoting a CD, there are audio samples available, and Kathryn has an impressive set of Irish Links. Some of these look like they might be useful to anyone learning Irish...

(March 2, 1997: music) If you liked Riverdance, you will probably also like Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance. That set of web pages is a tribute by Alan Robertson, and is not an official web page. However, it's very well presented and is sure to only increase demand for tickets to the show. I don't know of an official page for it yet, but I won't be surprised to see one coming. They could do far worse than start with Alan's page as their model... [readers in Central Virginia: see Lord of the Dance on Tuesday, March 4 1997 at 8pm on PBS in C'ville and Richmond!]

(February 1, 1997: Music) Many of you will by now have heard of Riverdance, but not everyone will have seen this review of the show. It really conveys the raw emotional impact of the show as told by someone who saw it both in its brief original form during the intermission of the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest, and as a show at the Point Theatre in Dublin.

I tend to be wary of commercial sites, but this one, Celtic Cultures, may be of interest to Celtophiles, Musicians, etc. Run by a gentleman by the name of Stuart Joseph.

There is a music archive at ftp.uwp.edu that I have yet to explore.

If you're more interested in Jazz, check out Jazz in Dublin (1996 March 13), brought to you by Garvan Browne (who brought us the Strawberry beds page; see the travel section).


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Pat Murphy
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