My Irish Radio Music and Culture News

https://www.seanmckeonpipes.com/

You might think you know what “pipes” sound like, but the uilleann pipes are a different world, and once you hear how they work, you start listening to Irish music with brand-new ears. We’re joined by Dublin uilleann piper Sean McKeon, who grew up in a deeply musical family, surrounded by visiting musicians and instruments in the house, then slowly found his own path into the tradition through community, gigs, and even teaching at a young age.

We get specific about the instrument itself: why uilleann pipes are bellows-blown, why that matters for tone and feel, and how the full setup comes together with a melody chanter, drones, and regulators that let Sean play chords with his hand while the tune keeps moving. He also explains the realities of a handmade instrument with multiple reeds, constant maintenance, and the kind of fragility that makes carry-on travel non-negotiable. Along the way, we talk about the emotional force of slow airs and a fun twist many listeners miss: the iconic Braveheart theme you recognize is played on uilleann pipes.

We also zoom out to the working musician life, from the pressure and thrill of solo performance to the mic strategy needed in studios and live rooms. If you’re in the Detroit Irish music scene, we cover Sean’s Corktown Tavern solo show on October 20, what he shares from the stage beyond just tunes, and a workshop where players (and even non-players) can dig into rhythm, tempo, ornamentation, and how to approach traditional music with more confidence.

If you enjoy Irish culture in Michigan, traditional music, or just love learning how rare instruments actually function, hit play, subscribe, and share this with a friend. After you listen, leave a review and tell us: what song would you want to hear on uilleann pipes?

Your source for Irish music and culture news! Tune in for the latest in Irish and Celtic music, festivals, and heritage. Listen 24/7 at MyIrishRadio.com — and host your own show! Email [email protected]

From trad to rock — Ireland’s soundtrack lives here.
Listen worldwide at MyIrishRadio.com

Script compiled and read with voices from NotebookLM 

Ireland is doing something that sounds almost backwards at first: treating culture like critical infrastructure, then paying to keep it running. We follow the threads across a packed week of Irish music and culture news, starting with a simple question asked by a new Irish Traditional Music Archive exhibition: how do songs live? Christy Moore’s “How Do Songs Live?” doesn’t just preserve the past behind glass. It reanimates it with 188 newly recorded songs and present-day reflections, turning the archive into a living operating system instead of a sealed time capsule.

From there, we zoom out to the Irish Cultural Atlas of America, tracing 250 years of Irish music, song, and dance across the United States and the diaspora. We also dig into the modern edge of tradition, where Brona McVitie’s folktronica pulls 19th-century Irish fairy lore into electronica and forces the authenticity debate into the open. If a tradition survives by mutating, what counts as “real” Irish music in 2026?

Live performance brings the stakes into the body. We talk festivals that blend ancient Sawin roots with food and community, Harp Day celebrations that keep Ireland’s national emblem musically current, and a stage production honoring the women of Ireland’s revolution. Then the modern constraints hit: industrial strike action that reshuffles concerts, and sellout demand that stretches venues and touring logistics to their limit.

Everything points to one unavoidable topic: funding. Ireland’s basic income for the arts, paying selected artists 325 euros per week for three years, could change what gets made and who can afford to make it. It also raises the final question we can’t shake: if you remove the struggle, does the rebellious sound of Irish culture change too? Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves Irish music, and leave a review with your take on that question.

Your source for Irish music and culture news! Tune in for the latest in Irish and Celtic music, festivals, and heritage. Listen 24/7 at MyIrishRadio.com — and host your own show! Email [email protected]

From trad to rock — Ireland’s soundtrack lives here.
Listen worldwide at MyIrishRadio.com

Script compiled and read with voices from NotebookLM 

https://haggisx1.com/

A band does not last nearly 30 years by accident, and Trevor Lewington is candid about what it takes to keep the music alive when the world, the industry, and your own life keep changing. We sit down with Trevor to talk about the full arc of Enter the Haggis and the new chapter that follows: Haggis X1. Along the way, he traces it back to the moment that flipped his life into music, a dusty old guitar found behind a couch, plus the hard-earned lessons you only get from years on the road.

We get specific about sound, too. Trevor explains why Haggis X1 is not just a new name, but a new approach built around improvisation, risk, and shows that change night to night. That opens the door to a surprising overlap between Celtic rock and jam band culture, including the band’s plans for a Grateful Dead reimagining with Celtic instruments and energy. If you’ve ever wondered what makes a band feel “truly Celtic” instead of just rock with pipes, Trevor breaks it down through melody, jigs and reels, and lyrics that can carry real weight while the tune stays bright.

Then we zoom out to the modern music industry reality for independent artists: streaming, CDs that still sell at the merch table, vinyl that fans love, touring economics, and even unconventional merch like branded hot sauce. We also talk about the Haggis Heads fan community and what support can look like at its most meaningful, from crowdfunding to major charitable giving during painful seasons of life.

Subscribe for more artist conversations, share this with a friend who loves Celtic music, and leave a review with your favorite live show memory.

https://haggisx1.com/

Your source for Irish music and culture news! Tune in for the latest in Irish and Celtic music, festivals, and heritage. Listen 24/7 at MyIrishRadio.com — and host your own show! Email [email protected]

From trad to rock — Ireland’s soundtrack lives here.
Listen worldwide at MyIrishRadio.com

Script compiled and read with voices from NotebookLM 

A thousand-year-old Viking structure in Waterford and a sweat-soaked post-punk show in Killarney look like two different universes, until you zoom out and see they’re both doing the same job: proving a culture is alive. We take a curated stack of Irish music and culture news from My Irish Radio and turn it into a map of modern Irish identity, where preservation and evolution aren’t competing forces, they’re the shared engine.

We start in the music itself, because that’s where the pulse is easiest to hear. Fionn Reagan’s Berlin Berlin represents deliberate stillness: minimalism, isolation, and the emotional weather of winter skies. Then we swing hard into the opposite frequency: Fontaines D.C. energy and a huge Glen Eagle Arena night built for catharsis with The Scratch, Gurriers, and Sprints. Rather than a fractured scene, we unpack why Ireland’s soundscape works like a breathing system, quiet as the inhale, distortion as the exhale.

From there, we trace the machinery that turns songs into a living ecosystem: Irish chart momentum, the crowded 2027 touring pipeline, and why grassroots festivals like the Cork Folk Festival and Sound of Belfast are not side quests, but foundational infrastructure. We also cross the water to Liverpool, where the Irish Heritage and Culture Exhibition and St. Brigid’s Arms protect diaspora women’s oral histories on the very ground where migration shaped daily life. Then we go deeper still, into the earth of Waterford, where archaeology may be rewriting the Viking story from raiders to city builders, before closing with the modern bedrock we honor through obituaries and remembrance.

If you care about Irish music, Irish culture, cultural heritage, or the question of what our era leaves behind, hit play, subscribe, and share this with a friend. After you listen, leave a review and tell us: what part of culture do you never want to lose?

Your source for Irish music and culture news! Tune in for the latest in Irish and Celtic music, festivals, and heritage. Listen 24/7 at MyIrishRadio.com — and host your own show! Email [email protected]

From trad to rock — Ireland’s soundtrack lives here.
Listen worldwide at MyIrishRadio.com

Script compiled and read with voices from NotebookLM 

A school notice board in 1976 turns into a global empire, and then that empire chooses to come back and stand exposed. We dig into the cultural signal behind U2’s 50-year anniversary celebrations, from an outdoor set at Mount Temple Comprehensive School to a surprise moment over Grafton Street, plus the curious tension of releasing a single called “Silencio” in the middle of deafening legacy.

From there, we widen the lens to the living Irish music scene that thrives where the rooms are small and the connection is immediate. We talk new releases, new label moves, and the kind of gigs where you can feel the floor shake and see the sweat, because that undergrowth is what keeps Irish music culture evolving rather than freezing into nostalgia.

Then we shift to literal excavation and the stories hiding in plain sight: a huge Viking discovery in Waterford, an exhibition mapping more than 900 shipwrecks across Dublin Bay, and a massive leap in public access to Irish genealogy with digitized Cork burial records, guidance for the 1926 census, and the continued lifeline of Griffith’s Valuation. We wrap by connecting all of it to today’s cultural canvas in theatre, art, and literature, where archives become raw fuel for new work.

If you like smart Irish culture news that links music, history, archaeology, and identity, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show.

Your source for Irish music and culture news! Tune in for the latest in Irish and Celtic music, festivals, and heritage. Listen 24/7 at MyIrishRadio.com — and host your own show! Email [email protected]

From trad to rock — Ireland’s soundtrack lives here.
Listen worldwide at MyIrishRadio.com

Script compiled and read with voices from NotebookLM 

Get tickets and info on current shows here:

https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/andy-irvine-live-at-the-gaelic-league

https://michiganirish.org/

https://www.andyirvine.com/

A lot of artists talk about “full circle” moments. Andy Irvine actually lives one. After more than six decades as a defining voice in Irish folk music, he finally releases an entire album devoted to the songs of Woody Guthrie, the writer who helped pull him into folk in the first place and whose words still feel painfully current. We sit down with Andy ahead of his Midwest run through Chicago, Detroit, and the Michigan Irish festival scene to hear how this record came together and why it still sounds like an Andy Irvine album, not a museum piece. 

We dig into the deep-folk mechanics behind the track list: how you narrow Guthrie’s enormous catalog, what you do with lyrics Woody never recorded, and how melodies move through tradition via borrowed airs and reimagined arrangements. Andy shares what he found in the Woody Guthrie Archive in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and how research turns into something you can actually sing onstage night after night. If you care about folk storytelling, protest songs, traditional music, and the craft of building an arrangement that serves the words, there’s a lot here to steal for your own listening and playing. 

The conversation gets personal as Andy remembers corresponding from afar during 1959 to 1960, when Guthrie’s Huntington’s disease had already taken away his ability to write back, and friends helped keep the connection alive through letters and reel-to-reel tapes. We also talk about recording at home, leaving good songs off an album because “there isn’t room,” and the tricky balance of honoring new material without pushing out the older repertoire audiences still show up for. 

If you enjoy Andy’s work with Planxty, Sweeney’s Men, and beyond, or you’re searching for the best Woody Guthrie covers with a fresh traditional approach, hit play and come along for the stories. Subscribe for more, share this with a folk-loving friend, and leave a review with the Woody song you think should never disappear.

Your source for Irish music and culture news! Tune in for the latest in Irish and Celtic music, festivals, and heritage. Listen 24/7 at MyIrishRadio.com — and host your own show! Email [email protected]

From trad to rock — Ireland’s soundtrack lives here.
Listen worldwide at MyIrishRadio.com

Script compiled and read with voices from NotebookLM 

A Viking longhouse the size of a headline is emerging from the soil in Waterford, while ancient harp melodies get pressed onto neon vinyl. That contrast isn’t a contradiction. It’s a clean way to understand Irish culture right now: fiercely protective of its roots and almost fearless about remixing them for the future.

We zoom in on the week of September 7 through 13, 2026 and follow the music as it crosses borders and comes back changed. Cherish the Ladies makes history as the first US-based group to win a top traditional Irish music honor, and we unpack why the diaspora can “freeze” a style, preserve it, and send it back as a standard. Then we flip the direction of influence with Andy Irvine’s Irish acoustic take on Woody Guthrie, tracing the shared drone, modes, and working-class themes that link Irish folk and early American folk.

From there, we test what happens when tradition meets modern production. We talk Chasing Abbey’s CyberSelt and the real acoustic overlap between uilleann pipe drones and EDM sub-bass, plus the immersive audiovisual push from Trick Mist, balanced against the raw pull of McDara Yates’ street-song approach. We also map the week’s live cultural range, from Trinity’s Future of Music Conference to folk festival deep cuts, Mahler in the concert hall, and stadium-scale pop at Croke Park.

Finally, we go deeper than playlists into preservation and memory: the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland crossing half a million digitized records, Cork burial records becoming searchable, the importance of Griffith’s Valuation after the Four Courts fire, and the heavy history echoed by Duffy’s Cut in Pennsylvania. If you like Irish music, Irish history, and cultural analysis with real stakes, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find us.

Your source for Irish music and culture news! Tune in for the latest in Irish and Celtic music, festivals, and heritage. Listen 24/7 at MyIrishRadio.com — and host your own show! Email [email protected]

From trad to rock — Ireland’s soundtrack lives here.
Listen worldwide at MyIrishRadio.com

Script compiled and read with voices from NotebookLM 

A packed field at Electric Picnic. An 80,000-capacity Slane Castle headline announcement. Then a quiet excavation that brings forgotten lives back into the light. We follow the thread that ties modern Irish music to the deeper machinery of Irish culture and Irish history and the connection is stronger than you might expect.

We talk through Fontaines D.C. booking Slane Castle for June 26, 2027 and why that stage is a true legacy marker, plus the kind of temporary “small city” logistics a show like that demands. From there we zoom into Electric Picnic’s lineup as a living timeline, where Van Morrison and newer voices share the same cultural oxygen, and where the Saw Doctors bringing out the Mayo GAA team becomes a perfect snapshot of local identity scaling up to a national celebration. We also push back on the old idea that Irish artists must leave for London or Los Angeles by looking at Irish Music Month and how local radio stations create a real grassroots pipeline.

Then we shift to preservation: the Irish Heritage Collection sale highlights how physical artifacts can become exclusive, while the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland hits 500,000 freely accessible digital records and opens Irish genealogy and research to the global Irish diaspora. Finally, we dig into archaeology in Waterford and Pennsylvania and what those discoveries say about inward and outward migration, memory, and the stories modern Irish songs keep carrying forward. Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves Irish music, and leave a review with the detail you can’t stop thinking about.

Your source for Irish music and culture news! Tune in for the latest in Irish and Celtic music, festivals, and heritage. Listen 24/7 at MyIrishRadio.com — and host your own show! Email [email protected]

From trad to rock — Ireland’s soundtrack lives here.
Listen worldwide at MyIrishRadio.com

Script compiled and read with voices from NotebookLM 

Dolly Parton is gone, and it feels personal, even if you never met her. She wrote songs that hold up a mirror without being cruel, she made space for people to laugh at themselves, and she gave back in ways that changed lives far beyond the stage. Today we slow down and sit with her work the way you would with a friend, letting the music do what it always did: comfort, spark memories, and tell the truth in plain language.

We also chase a thread that surprises a lot of listeners, Dolly’s connection to Celtic music and Irish culture. From the Little Sparrow era and its intentionally folk-forward sound to the way Appalachian music carries echoes of Scotland and Ireland, you can hear how naturally her voice fits into traditional textures. Along the way we share Irish and Irish-adjacent covers that reframe her classics, including a joyful take on “Two Doors Down,” a heartfelt “I Will Always Love You,” and an Irish-flavored twist where “Jolene” becomes “Maureen.”

Then there’s the kind of story you almost wouldn’t believe if it weren’t recorded: Dolly on vacation in County Kerry, stepping into a pub session and singing “Coat of Many Colors” like she’s been there all night. We also spotlight her collaboration with Altan, nod to the tribute album that includes Sinead O’Connor’s powerful cover, and finally let Dolly do what only she can, deliver the definitive “Jolene,” before we close with “The Parting Glass.”

If Dolly’s music has ever meant something to you, hit play, share this tribute with a friend, and subscribe so you don’t miss the next one. After you listen, will you tell us your first Dolly memory and the one song you’ll always keep?

Your source for Irish music and culture news! Tune in for the latest in Irish and Celtic music, festivals, and heritage. Listen 24/7 at MyIrishRadio.com — and host your own show! Email [email protected]

From trad to rock — Ireland’s soundtrack lives here.
Listen worldwide at MyIrishRadio.com

Script compiled and read with voices from NotebookLM 

A million people gathering in Belfast for traditional Irish music should change how we talk about “old” culture. We start with that jaw-dropping crowd and follow the ripple effects across Irish music and Irish heritage, because numbers like that don’t happen when a tradition is fragile. They happen when a community feels ownership and pride, and when newcomers feel welcomed into the sound. If you’re searching for Irish music news, Irish culture updates, or the best Irish and Celtic music discoveries, you’ll hear why traditional music is thriving right now and why it’s anything but stuck in the past.

From there, we zoom into the modern remix. Festival lineups place giants of the tradition alongside fearless contemporary voices, and new releases underline the point with real creativity. We dig into the logic behind Irish hip hop fusion, where rap’s roots in oral storytelling line up surprisingly well with sean-nós phrasing, ballad culture, and rhythm-first narratives. The question we keep coming back to is not whether tradition can survive change, but whether change is the method that keeps tradition alive.

Then we move from sound to place. National Heritage Week and OPW heritage sites open the doors with tours, community events, and hands-on experiences like weaving workshops, antiquities roadshows, and mock archaeological digs. That leads to the real dirt-under-the-fingernails story in Waterford, where Viking-era structural foundations point to permanent settlement and big historical revisions. And we close with a digital kind of unearthing: expanded genealogy tools like the Cork Graveyards database, where one searchable record can turn overwhelming history into a personal anchor.

If this sparks your curiosity, subscribe, share the episode with a friend who loves Irish music and history, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show.

Your source for Irish music and culture news! Tune in for the latest in Irish and Celtic music, festivals, and heritage. Listen 24/7 at MyIrishRadio.com — and host your own show! Email [email protected]

From trad to rock — Ireland’s soundtrack lives here.
Listen worldwide at MyIrishRadio.com

Script compiled and read with voices from NotebookLM