By Ray d'Entremont ——Bio and Archives--August 22, 2026
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.
Years ago, I wondered why so many Irish songs had such dark subject matter, even when sung with precision, joy and enthusiasm. It seems obvious now. Much of this music was created after the island was overrun first by the Anglo-Normans and dominated by the English. It sprang from the tragedy of resistance against impossible odds: cruelty, mass death, land confiscation, cultural suppression and exile. A classic clash of civilizations!
All societies tell stories and adopt symbols that give meaning to their existence. Even under subjugation, those stories stubbornly persist, acquiring new meanings through embellishment and romantic projection. They can fire discontent, fuelled by nostalgia and longing for a peaceful, idealized past that may never have existed.
This song expresses a wish to return to the pastoral--a nostalgic desire for a simpler, more natural existence associated with the countryside, away from cities, industry, complexity and political turmoil. It idealizes rural life as more peaceful, authentic and wholesome than the present. The melody is beautiful, and Jim McCann delivers it with just the right measure of longing and pain. The sparse instrumentation perfectly suits this idealized rustic existence—the classical idyll.
The Celts are famous for their jigs and reels, and this performance by Shamrock--surprisingly, from Mexico City--eventually erupts into a lively toe-tapper. As if preparing us for the dance, multi-instrumentalist Valentina Rascón, who also plays whistle and flute and occasionally sings, gives a master class on that distinctively Celtic instrument, the bodhrán. If you know nothing about this drum, watch her and you will soon understand how it produces such a variety of rhythmic sounds. Shamrock is a testament to the universal appeal of Celtic music.
What--Irish accents? It is hard to believe this is a German group. The song is actually Newfoundland-born, celebrating the tradition of holding wakes in the old Irish style. Before death became a lucrative business, Newfoundland wakes mixed sorrow with celebration for three days and two nights, especially in communities with Irish roots. This gave friends and relatives time to reach isolated outports and helped ensure that the departed was not buried alive. Food, drink, music, stories and even lighthearted pranks helped console the family. Friends and neighbours maintained a constant vigil, ensuring that someone was always “awake” with the deceased. You can bet that more than one corpse was propped up in the parlour, a glass of whiskey in his hand and a lit cigarette in his mouth.
Written by Stan Rogers, the story is fictional, but, like many of his songs, it feels completely real. One shipwreck survivor credited the song with giving him another 30 years with his family: during his ordeal, Rogers’s words kept churning through his head and strengthened his will to live. This anthem reaches far deeper than the wreck of one sunken ship.
This serious song has lyrics by Irish playwright Dion Boucicault, adapted from an older street ballad for his 1864 play Arrah-na-Pogue, set during the Irish Rebellion of 1798. It reflects the long history of English dominance in Ireland: penal laws, the political exclusion of Catholics, economic control and the crushing of resistance. It followed the successful separation of the Thirteen Colonies from Britain and occurred during the French Revolution. The United Irishmen sought an independent republic uniting Catholics and Protestants. Their defeat contributed to the Act of Union of 1801, which formally joined Ireland and Great Britain. Green remained a potent nationalist emblem, later associated with St. Patrick’s Day and Irish identity, particularly among the diaspora. But when Irishmen wore green garments or shamrocks as symbols of solidarity, British authorities viewed it as treasonous. The refrain says that people were hanged for “wearing of the green.” Although supporters of the rebellion were executed, historical accounts more commonly describe beatings, imprisonment and fines for displaying the colour than executions solely for clothing. The performer has deliberately remained unidentified. I suspect “Réa Mc Halla” is a pseudonym adopted by someone using AI to create the recording.
I have always loved the Irish Rovers’ energy, and I love this song. It concerns a treacherous young woman whom the narrator meets in Belfast. She slips stolen goods into his pocket, framing him for the crime, and he is sent to an Australian penal colony. He regrets allowing her to beguile him and is understandably bitter, yet he remains enthralled by the beautiful woman with the black velvet band in her hair.
It finally dawned on me why so many Irish songs concern bandits and highwaymen. When a dominant culture supplants an indigenous one, it commonly attempts to eradicate the culture that existed before. The original inhabitants resist. This returns us to the observation that people derive meaning from shared symbols, customs and stories. As Scottish politician Andrew Fletcher famously observed, “Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.” Oppressed people sometimes excuse conduct that would otherwise be considered reprehensible. Irish identity itself was at times criminalized; people lost land, possessions and dignity. Robbing those perceived to have unfairly impoverished them could therefore be romanticized as heroic resistance--a just settling of accounts. If some booty reached the poor, the bandit acquired the cachet of a Robin Hood.
This is an Irishman knowingly playing with a cultural stereotype. I have always found that the Irish, particularly the New World Irish, have a penchant for self-deprecating humour. But I have also wondered why drink is so closely associated with the Irish working man, while the Scots treat whisky almost as a sacred trust--a gentlemanly sport akin to fly-fishing in a firth or playing polo in a kilt. The song originated in Scotland but was quickly adopted into the Irish repertoire. “Nancy” is whisky personified, and the song warns of the destructive power of John Barleycorn. MacGowan, born in England to Irish parents, fused Irish music with punk and rock. He wrote remarkably literate songs about emigrants, drinkers, prisoners, rebels, lovers and London poor Irish. There is a hint of gravel--or perhaps barley--in his voice, suggesting that he knew whereof he sang.
This traditional ballad tells of Willie Brennan of Raspberry Hill, a real nineteenth-century highwayman whom folklore transformed into a champion of the people. Introduced as “bold, brave and undaunted,” he is recognized by a mayor who attempts to arrest him. Brennan’s wife secretly passes him a blunderbuss from beneath her cloak; Brennan turns the tables, robs the mayor and escapes into the mountains. Soldiers pursue him until he is betrayed, captured and hanged. Whether he actually “robbed the rich to give to the poor” is uncertain; that familiar Robin Hood quality was often attached to popular outlaws after their deaths. Bob Dylan cited the Clancy Brothers as a major influence and singled out Liam as his favourite ballad singer. Dylan also borrowed the melody of “Brennan on the Moor” for his own “Rambling, Gambling Willie.”
Here is a raw rendition of an iconic Irish ballad set to the “Londonderry Air,” with lyrics written--ironically--by Englishman Frederic Weatherly in 1910. As a boy, I imagined a lover’s farewell. Others hear a parent sending a son to war, and although the speaker is never identified, that seems more likely to me. That ambiguity is part of the song’s power. To my ear, its mythos demands an aching male voice capable of reluctant emotion--just as “Desperado” sounds best sung by a woman. John Gary’s version is stellar for its falsetto-to-chest-vocal gymnastics, but Cahill’s recording--just voice and unobtrusive piano--communicates an open wound. Its tiny imperfections make it even more poignant.
Vulnerability, emotional intensity and pain: everything is on the table. This is O’Connor’s most celebrated traditional Irish performance. Her haunting, mournful delivery is deeply affecting--restrained, yet filled with quiet power and grief. It remains one of the finest modern interpretations of an Irish ballad.
I was once president of Destination Canada, an organization of government and private-sector interests created to market Canada internationally as a tourist destination. Clearly, nobody wanted the job! On one occasion, we hired Rawlins Cross to entertain at a formal luncheon for movers and shakers in the American hospitality industry. At first I was taken aback. We had flown them in and paid them handsomely, but they arrived dressed very casually a couple looked downright scruffy. Then Ian McKinnon began playing rock and roll on his chanter--essentially the melody pipe of the bagpipes without the bag--and you could have heard a pin drop. Nobody had seen or heard anything like it. They were not merely great musicians; collectively, they played a remarkable range of instruments, from bouzouki and trumpet to Chapman Stick. Later, while touring Europe with a group of merchants and musicians, I concluded that Ian would happily have played for nothing. One night, in a packed cottage at a Dutch resort, I jammed with him and a tiny, 90-pound-soaking-wet Natalie MacMaster- fiddler par excellence--until five in the morning. Their paid performance had ended around nine the previous evening; they were now playing purely for fun. Ian then piped the gang back to their rooms, a shocking awakening, I suspect, for Dutchmen miles around.
Alan Doyle had a great big personality and was a splendid frontman. Most people enjoy Irish music, but even my rocker son loves this band. I would rank them among Canada’s dozen finest pop groups. This song appears on our barbecue playlist, whose usual audience consists of my son, me and my Big Green Egg. Great Big Sea shares the bill with rock and blues performers such as Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen and Gov’t Mule. Newfoundland has deep cultural ties to Ireland through large-scale immigration during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, particularly from southeastern counties such as Wexford, Tipperary and Kilkenny. Their descendants became a major part of many outport communities along Newfoundland’s southern and eastern shores. That migration produced a remarkable cultural continuity in dialect, storytelling, music and song.
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A boy soprano, lifelong music lover, and serial starter of things, Ray has worn more hats than most people have ever owned. Music has been a constant companion.
His playlists are an eclectic mix of genres accessed by mood and time. Over the years, he variously played in mostly rock and electric blues bands, but jazz and country too, in the Runic Stones, X-Men of Note, Purple Splintered Night, Broken Vessel, Country Gold, Eddy & The Hubcaps, ORCA, Hardscratch Road 2.0, and several others. His wife of 57 years (high school sweetheart) doesn’t agree that he needs 25 guitars!