CNN - Bagpipes or Sinead O'Connor?

Bagpipes or Sinead O'Connor?

Both will do this St. Patrick's Day

March 16, 1996
Web posted at: 8:30 a.m. EST

From Correspondent Bill Tush

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The sound of bagpipes is as much a part of St. Patrick's Day tradition as hoisting a mug or two at McSorley's Ale House in New York, where Abraham Lincoln lifted a few in the 1860s. But St. Patrick's Day has also become a time to celebrate the richness and diversity of Irish music.

"Film Cuts," the latest release from the traditional Irish group The Chieftains, features songs of theirs used in such movies as "Rob Roy" and "Circle of Friends."

The album follows on the heels of The Chieftain's recent Grammy win for a collaboration with Van Morrison on the song "Have I Told You Lately that I Love You."

Contemporary artists like Sting and Sinead O'Connor teamed up with The Chieftains last year to record the gold album "The Long Black Veil."

"Ireland is booming in the arts. And music is of the richest forms of the arts that we've got for hundreds of years," says Paddy Maloney of The Chieftains.

The lead singer of the Cranberries, a popular Irish group that prefers a contemporary sound to the more traditional, says that such music still plays a large part in Irish culture.

"I went to Irish dance when I was four. I was playing the tin whistle when I was five. So I think certain things are bred into you," Dolores O'Riordan says.

Groups like Altan and Anunna are also exploring Ireland's traditional musical heritage. "Most of the music (in our repertoire) is based in the ancient medieval past, and we do some of the earliest pieces known," says Michael McGlynn of Anunna.

According to Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh of Altan, Irish music is truly world music. "The jig comes from Italy, and the actual fiddle is an Italian instrument as well, so we've adapted a lot of European instruments into our tradition. The only indigenous instrument in Ireland would be the illean pipes."

"You start off with the tin whistle and the woodwinds in Ireland and you end up with the illean pipes," says musician Davy Spillane.

So you don't have to stick solely to bagpipe music this St. Patrick's Day. Van Morrison and The Chieftains can always do the second set.

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Bagpipes or Sinead O'Connor?

Both will do this St. Patrick's Day

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