Shamrocks & Shillelaghs …

This playlist features a baker’s dozen. As my son pointed out, most Western music is created with the same handful of instruments. Traditional Celtic music is different: bagpipes, accordions, chanters, whistles, bodhráns (pronounced BOW-rawns), dulcimers and Irish harps, along with fiddles, basses, mandolins, banjos, guitars and the occasional flute. Just as early heavy metal often paired heavy music with lighter lyrics--Led Zeppelin, Iron Butterfly and Vanilla Fudge--Irish music frequently does the opposite: light, lively music carrying heavy lyrics.