A Hundred Thousand Welcomes!!

Irish Traditional music, the ancient music of the Irish people, is a hallmark of culturally thriving Irish immigrant communities in the United States, and has been played by master musicians in Boston, New York, Chicago, and San Francisco for over a century. These cities have legacies as focal points of great music and great “craic” ([krak]: good times, merriment) that endorse their iconic reputations across the worldwide Irish community.

 

South of the Mason-Dixon Line, however, a newcomer has been advancing for almost thirty years, slowly gaining musical ground and earning itself a place among these storied urbs that befits a center of high caliber Irish Traditional music. This city is Baltimore and the music here is unlike any other music in the world. The community that has sprung up around Irish Traditional music in Baltimore is diverse, but its handling of the music is single-mindedly deft and its devotion to the integrity of the Tradition is unanimously passionate. We are, understandably, very proud of it.

 

On the following webpages, you will find our study of Irish Traditional music in Baltimore. It is the culmination of a year and a half of fieldwork and many more years of musical experience. It contains a brief history of Irish Traditional music as well as an account of its presence in Maryland, which is hardly as storied as one might expect. We have included detailed profiles of the musicians playing Irish Traditional music in Baltimore, the organizations supporting it, and all the places one can go to hear it played in Baltimore.

It has been our pleasure and our privilege to compile this study and we hope you will draw equal enjoyment from exploring what we have collected.

Céad míle fáilte!

(…and we promise the rest will be in English),

Peter Brice and Sean McComiskey