We can’t throw a parade, but here’s a playlist ready for your celebration of all things Irish.
- Down By the Salley Gardens, The Yale Whiffenpoofs
Beautiful and sentimental Irish tune, done old-style, with a fine, Irish-sounding tenor in the lead. - Whiskey in the Jar, The Dubliners
One of the great traditional bands sings a drinking song that has been one of my favorite tunes since I was about three, so my parents tell me. - The Reels, Black 47
Here’s a modern Irish rock band, not known for their sentimentality, doing their take on Cèili dances. This is the way they closed out a live concert. - Strathspey and Reels, Julie Fowlis
A more traditional take (minus the rock instruments) on Cèili (Irish) dances. - Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair, John McCormack
One of the great tenors of the early 20th-century was also one of the first to exploit recordings as a career-booster. Here he is in a surprisingly good-sounding recording from 1935. - “The Fair Day” from An Irish Symphony (Hamilton Harty), Ulster Orchestra, Bryden Thompson, conductor.
Hamilton Harty was a successful Irish classical composer born in the late Victorian era. Like a lot of composers of his time, he turned to folk music to infuse life into old classic forms. This picturesque symphonic movement is one result. - Danny Boy, Grimethorpe Colliery Band
While Brassed Off, the 1996 movie about laid-off miners and their brass band, is set in Northern England, this tune, memorably played by the actual Grimethorpe Colliery Band, is most definitely Irish.