Today is Saint Patrick’s Day for Western Christians, and is also celebrated by my fellow Orthodox, though his feast day on the Julian Calender is March 30. I thought I would share a bit of Irish music, but something not so common.
I’m sure a great many of you know the work of Ireland’s third-most famous export (after Guinness Beer and U2), The Chieftains. They have toured the world bringing Celtic music to the masses, even making a legendary appearance at the Great Wall of China in 1983. The band got their start after the members of the above band, led by the single most important man responsible for the Irish traditional music revival, Seán Ó Riada and featuring a young Paddy Moloney and other future Chieftains, who went on to develop a sound more reliant on Uilleann pipes.