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Sleeve Notes
Jackie Riordan's, Money in Both Pockets & The Dungannon Reel [REELS] — The first tune was written by the great fiddler Brendan Mulvihill who has spent the past thirty years in the Washington DC area. He named it after a musician who was prominent in the local DC scene in the 1970's and early 80s. Billy learned the second tune in Lansdale, PA, from the late Johnny McGreevy from Chicago, one of the most brilliant fiddlers and lovable musicians ever to play Irish music. The third tune is a composition of Billy's. His father came from County Armagh and his father before him had a small farm just outside Portadown near the Dungannon Road. Hence the title.
The Rambling Irishman [SONG] — Some Irish emigration ballads express a deep sense of loss and longing for the homeland left behind while others like this song are optimistic and filled with a sense of adventure. This is basically the same version recorded in 1927 for the Victor Company in Camden, NJ by famed Donegal-born singer John McGettigan, one of the most popular performers in Philadelphia from the time he arrived in the city in the early 20th century until his death in 1965. Mick made minor alterations to a few lines and included an additional verse from a broadside version of the song he found in the matchless library of his late mentor and friend Kenny Goldstein.
Jim O'Keefe's, The Clog, The Star Above the Garter & The Hare in the Corn [SLIDES] — We are indebted to West Limerick concertina player Tim Collins for this lovely set of tunes. Slides (single jigs in 12/8 time) seem to be associated in Ireland only with the Cork/Kerry area known as Sliabh Luachra and parts of West Limerick near the Kerry border. The first two tunes in the set were recorded by the mighty Kanturk-born accordion player Jackie Daly on his self-titled 1977 solo album. Jim O' Keefe was a fiddle player from Ballydesmond and a pupil of Sliabh Luachra master fiddler Padraig O'Keefe "The Star Above the Garter" is associated with the great Sliabh Luachra fiddlers Denis Murphy and his sister Julia Clifford. "The Hare in the Corn" was recorded by Patrick O'Keefe and released by RTE on the CD of field recordings titled The Sliabh Luachra fiddle master — Padraig O Keefe. Tim tells us It Is a big favorite in West Limerick.
The Islander's Lament [SONG] — Robbie wrote "The Islander's Lament" inspired by a visit to the Great Blasket Island off the end of the Dingle Peninsula in West Kerry. The island was abandoned in 1953 when the Irish government removed the last few dozen residents, many of whom settled in West Springfield, Massachusetts. The song is written from the point of view of a young woman who is waiting on the island for her lover to send for her.
Fahey's #25, Molly on the Shore & Bonnie Anne [REELS] — Galway fiddler Paddy Fahey, now in his late 70's, is one of the most renowned composers of Irish music in the traditional style. In his own lifetime many of his tunes have passed comprehensively into the living tradition — the ultimate accolade that can be accorded to a composer in this idiom. Athena learned this in the Galway sessions during the time she lived there between 1994 and '97. "Molly on the Shore" was written by the Australian-born pianist and composer Percy Grainger (1882 - 1961). He grew up in Melbourne and moved to London in his youth in the early 20th century and became a major figure in the early cylinder recordings of English folksingers. He was also very familiar with Irish music and wrote a number of pieces in the Irish idiom including "Molly on the Shore" composed very much in the flavor of Irish instrumental dance music, a tradition he greatly admired. After he moved to New York in 1914 this was to become one of his most popular and most recorded compositions; scored in a variety of keys and textures for multiple ensembles ranging from small wind consorts to full orchestra. It was so widely performed and broadcast that it ended up entering the Irish instrumental tradition. No doubt Grainger would have been thrilled. It makes a mighty four-part reel. Athena learned it from Mick, who learned it from Billy, who got it from Brendan Mulvihill.
Athena learned "Bonnie Anne in Galway" from Peter Parsons, a melodeon player. It was originally a County Fermanagh tune popularized by the late flute player Eddie Duffy. Peter told Athena that he inserted the distinctive C sharp in the second part because he did not have a C natural on his melodeon.
Across the Western Ocean [SONG] — John learned this song from Irish Emigrant Songs and Ballads, a unique collection of Irish American songs compiled by Robert L. Wright in the mid-1970's after a painstaking, nationwide trawl through broadside and songster collections in libraries and archives all over North America. John had always liked the sea shanty "Leave Her Johnny Leave Her" and was intrigued to find another song with the same melody and nautical theme. He also loved the first line. The times were hard and the wages low'. It is one of the few Irish emigration songs to refer to the Rocky Mountains. The second verse contains an enigmatic reference to the Irish Army suggesting perhaps that the emigrant may have originally been recruited or induced to participate on the Union side in the American Civil War in either Corcoran's Fighting 69th Regiment or Meagher's Irish Brigade.
The Glendy Burke [SONG] — Stephen Foster (1836-1864), whose great grandparents came from Foster's Glen in County Derry was America's first major popular songwriter. Before Foster, no song had ever sold more than five thousand copies in sheet music. When his composition "The Old Folks at Home" sold over 100,000 copies the American popular music business was transformed forever. "The Glendy Burke", written in 1860, is one of the last he wrote in the minstrel style that gained him such fame. Thanks to Mac Benford for digging it up. The African American subject in the song laments his lot in the Northern states and longs for the life he left behind in the Louisiana plantations. One of Foster's biographers stated that this song furnished incontrovertible evidence of how little the songwriter knew about the harsh realities of slavery. However, the wonderfully talented African American dancer and choreographer, Lenwood (Leni) Sloan thinks otherwise. Leni, a Louisiana cultural specialist and historian and longtime New Orleans resident, reminds us that we should not forget that Louisiana slaves under French rule were often eligible for more freedoms and opportunities than freed slaves employed as subsistence field hands in farms in the northern states. Foster, who spent several years in working as a bookkeeper in Cincinnati looking across the Ohio river at the slave state of Kentucky was also the first songwriter to describe an African American woman as a lady in his beautiful love song "Nelly Bly" It is fair to say he was much more sympathetic to the plight of African American culture than his biographers generally acknowledge. The two banjo drivers Mick and Mac banjo trade vocals.
Planxty Miss Maxwell — This is one of the most beautiful compositions of the 17th century harpist Turlough O'Carolan. It was introduced to the New York scene by Tim Collins when he was in the city as a Fulbright scholar at New York University in 2007. It has the familiar baroque flavor so characteristic of all of O'Carolan's music.
Down By the Tanyard Side [SONG] — This can be found in Colm O'Lochlainn's Irish Street Ballads Volume I, a collection that has furnished scores of songs for generations of Irish folk singers. Robbie adapted the tune from a version he learned from his cousin, Declan O'Connell. It is one of thousands of ballads in similar vein composed and passed on in post-famine Ireland where a young man leaves his true love behind to seek his fortune in North America.
The Bonnie Irish Boy [SONG] — This song has been found widely in Ireland, England, and North America in a variety of versions and recorded by numerous singers including Delia Murphy, O.J. Abbott, and Shirley Collins. This particular version was collected in the outports of Newfoundland where the song appears to have been particularly popular. John changed the time signature from 3/4 to 6/8 helping create more rhythmic and melodic dynamics to the performance. He liked the idea of the abandoned woman searching the whole East Coast of America for her lover and then finding him in Baltimore after a prophetic dream where nearly all hope is lost. All of a sudden, he's at her door with no explanation. Hard to improve on this particular happy ending for the wandering boyo and no comeuppance at all forthcoming for his irresponsible ways in not staying in touch.
The New Irish Barn Dance & Paddy McGinty's Goat [BARNDANCES] — The first tune is a wonderful barn dance which was recorded on the Columbia label by The Flanagan Brothers in 1928. Various versions of the tune were recorded by Swedish groups before the Flanagan recording and that strongly suggests a Scandinavian origin. The second tune is the melody of a well-known nineteenth century music hall song. It was a particular favorite of the wonderful Donegal melodeon player Tom Doherty, one of the most colorful Irish musicians in New York in the 1980's and '90's. He had a lovely melodic twist at the end of the first four bars of the A part of the tune and we include that in our version.
In the Woods of Old Limerick, Felix the Cat & The Music Teacher [JIGS/SLIP JIGS] — Billy got the first tune from his mother who heard it on an old recording and suggested he learn it. The second is a great favorite of legendary East Galway flute player Jack Coen who lives in the Bronx. The last tune was composed by Billy. He wrote it a week after the death of Maureen Glynn, a great musician who ran a music school in Brooklyn and was a huge influence on a whole new generation of Irish musicians in the 1970's and '80's. The tune is dedicated to her memory.
The Catalpa [SONG] — This is one of a very few songs which links Ireland, Australia, and America. It describes one of the most famous and outrageous escape stories of the 19th century. Six Irish revolutionaries Thomas Darragh, Michael Harrington, Thomas Hassett, Martin Hogan. Thomas Cranston, and James Wilson, all members of the Fenian Brotherhood, were transported between 1863 and 1865 from Ireland to Australia and sentenced to fourteen years in prison. An elaborate escape plan was hatched in the United States by John Devoy and other American-based Fenian leaders. They bought a whaling ship, named it The Catalpa after a native American tree (thanks to Bangkok-resident Frank Crocker for this piece of esoterica) and sailed it as a working vessel for two years. Captained by George Smith Anthony, a Fenian sympathizer, The Catalpa sailed across the world to Australia where in April 1876 a rendezvous was carefully planned for with the six prisoners with a lot of help from John Breslin and Tom Desmond, two Fenians already on the ground in Australia. With their help the prisoners escaped from Freemantle Jail on April 17th as authorities were distracted by the festivities of the Perth Regatta taking place on that same day. They traveled fifty miles to Rockingham where Anthony was waiting for them with a rowboat to transport them on board.
The Catalpa was pursued by the Georgette, an Australian naval vessel. Just as it got within hailing distance of the escapees the Catalpa entered international waters. Anthony immediately raised the Stars and Stripes, and this presented the captain of the Georgette with a major dilemma. If he fired on, or attempted to board, the Catalpa this action would in effect amount to a declaration of war on the United States. So, the Georgette turned away and headed back to the mainland as the Catalpa sailed off into the Indian Ocean en route to America where it arrived to a tumultuous welcome on August 19, 1876.
Mick first heard this song performed by Australian singer Paul Jensen in the Warsteiner-Stuben pub in Bangkok and got the words from The Big Book of Australian Folksongs compiled by the famous pioneering collector Ron Edwards. Mick had the great honor of being invited in October 2004 to Ron's home in Kuranda in Northern Queensland high in the rain forest above Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef. Sadly, Ron passed away on January 4th, 2008, leaving an extraordinary legacy of over 300 published books and booklets on various aspects of Australian folklore and folklife. This song is dedicated to his memory.
Billy in the Lowland, Belle of Lexington & Waynesboro [OLD TIME TUNES] — Appalachian old-time music is a cultural cousin of Irish music, and its genesis owes much to eighteenth and early nineteenth century migrations from the North of Ireland to the southern mountain states. Mac and Bruce have appeared with the Green Fields many times over the years at concerts and festivals and we were absolutely delighted to have them record this set with us. Waynesboro is a close relation to the well-known Irish tune, "Over the Moor to Maggie" and we added the third part of that reel, the way it is typically played in Ireland, to the Appalachian version.
The Musicians
John Doyle is among the most talented and innovative musicians to come out of Ireland in recent years. An extraordinary acoustic guitarist as well as an accomplished singer and songwriter, John can be heard accompanying many top Irish artists and has performed on such film and TV soundtracks as The Brothers McMullen and Out of Ireland. An original member of the acclaimed group Solas, John's turns as a record producer have created critically successful CDs by Heidi Talbot (Cherish the Ladies), Liz Carroll, Mick Moloney, and his father, Sean Doyle. John's second solo recording was released in 2005 on Compass Records and also received strong radio airplay and positive reviews.
Billy McComiskey was born and raised in Brooklyn NY. The dominant influence in his playing comes from the late Sean McGlynn from Tynagh, Co. Galway. In 1975 he moved to the Washington DC area to play bar gigs with Brendan Mulvihill and Andy O'Brien, in a group known as The Irish Tradition and they had a major influence in the popularization of Irish Traditional Music in the DC area and beyond. He went on to perform and make groundbreaking recordings with Trian, a trio made up of fiddler, Liz Carroll, guitarist and vocalist Dáithí Sproule. Billy was also part of the third Greenfields tour some twenty years ago. Billy won the Senior All Ireland Championship for the button accordion in 1986. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland with his wife Annie and three sons Patrick, Sean, and Michael.
Mick Moloney , a native of County Limerick has been living in the United States since 1973. He holds a Ph.D. in folklore and folklife from the University of Pennsylvania and currently teaches at New York University in the Irish Studies Program at Glucksman Ireland House. He has recorded and produced over fifty albums of traditional music and acted as advisor for scores of festivals and concerts all over America. He has hosted three nationally syndicated series of folk music on American Public Television; was a consultant, performer and interviewee on the Irish Television special Bringing It All Back Home and a participant, consultant and music arranger of the PBS documentary film, Out of Ireland. In 1999 he was awarded the National Heritage Award from the National Endowment for the Arts. He is the author of Far From the Shamrock Shore: The Story of Irish American History Through Song. His Compass Records CD on songs of old New York, titled McNally's Row of Flats won the best traditional music album of the year award from the Irish Echo in 2006.
Robbie O'Connell was born in Waterford, Ireland and grew up in Carrick-on-Suir, Co. Tipperary, where his parents owned a small hotel. He began to play guitar and sing at age thirteen. He spent a year touring the folk clubs in England before enrolling at University College Dublin where he studied Literature and Philosophy. During those summers Robbie worked as an entertainer in America, where he met his wife. In 1977 his celebrated uncles, The Clancy Brothers, asked him to join their group and he subsequently recorded three albums with them. Two years later he moved to Franklin, Massachusetts where he lived for the next twenty-five years. With the 1982 release of Close To the Bone he established himself as a major solo artist. Still, he continued working and recording with other musicians as well as the Clancy's — among them, Mick Moloney and Jimmy Keane; and Eileen Ivers and Seamus Egan in The Green Fields of America. Three more critically acclaimed solo albums were released. He has taught songwriting at several summer schools including the Augusta Heritage Arts Workshop and Boston College. He also leads music and cultural tours of Ireland. He recently moved to Bristol, Rhode Island and is currently working on a new solo recording.
Athena Tergis was born in NYC and raised in San Francisco. She took up the fiddle at age four. In local music schools, she learned from fiddle masters including Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh of Altan, Alasdair Fraser and Buddy MacMaster. After releasing her first album at 16 with fiddler Laura Risk, Athena moved to Ireland, immersing herself in the music. She joined The Sharon Shannon Band for their '97 festival tour and recorded the Gail Force TV series with the band. She went on to become the principal fiddler for the production of Riverdance on Broadway. Her solo album A Letter Home on Compass Records was hailed "a masterfully crafted work that accentuates the amazing musical talents of Tergis." Athena continues to tour regularly, surrounded by some of the finest Irish musicians on both sides of the Atlantic.
Guest Musicians
Mac Benford first made a name for himself back in the I970's as a member of the magnificent and notorious Highwoods Stringband, the group which gave the revival of traditional Appalachian music a mighty boost. Since that time, he has continued his leading role as a preserver and performer of old-time music, in his work with the Backwoods Band, the Woodshed Allstars, and currently, UpSouth and the Haywire Gang. Mac is drawn to the more note-y, Celtic-derived fiddle tunes, and has developed a unique banjo style which can do them justice. He is a longtime friend of Irish music and has been an honored guest at many big Irish concerts and festivals over the years.
Tim Collins , a native of West Limerick, has resided in Croisín, County Clare, since his marriage to musician Claire Griffin in 2001. Regarded as one of the finest concertina performers and tutors of contemporary times, his discography includes Dancing on Silver (his debut solo album, released in 2004), Reed Only, (a collaboration with Leitrim piper, Brian McNamara, released in 2007), as well as his many recordings with Clare's legendary Kilfenora Céilí band, which he has been a member of since 1994. His concertina music is regarded as tastefully ornamented and rhythmic, with a focus on older concertina and piping techniques. He graduated with a first-class master's degree from the University of Limerick in 2003 and in 2007 was awarded the inaugural Fulbright/Culture Ireland scholarship, resulting in a 5-month tenure at Glucksman Ireland House, New York University, where he worked alongside Mick Moloney. He is currently studying for his doctorate in the Centre for Irish Studies, at NUI Galway.
Brendan Dolan learned his music from his father, Felix Dolan, a legendary accompanist of Irish traditional music. Brendan has recorded extensively, most recently on the CD Live at Mona's, with Patrick Ourceau and Eamon O'Leary. In addition to Irish music, Brendan holds a degree in Jazz Performance and spent several years with the acclaimed Andy Statman Quartet playing Klezmermusic, including a tour with Itzhak Perlman. His touring has taken him as far afield as Ireland with Brian Conway, Alaska with the Cathie Ryan Band and Poland with Andy Statman. Brendan resides in Brooklyn, NY, where he plays music and teaches privately. Brendan is currently studying for an MA in the Irish Studies Program at New York University.
Ivan Goff is an All-Ireland champion uilleann piper from Dublin, based in New York He also plays the Irish wooden concert flute and a variety of whistles. A traditional musician with an eclectic background that includes master degrees in both musicology and computer composition, Ivan has performed In several well-known productions including extended engagements with Riverdance (US tour and Broadway), Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance and has featured in film scores such as recently-released Cremaster 3 (Matthew Barney) exhibited in the Guggenheim museum in 2003. In addition to performing as a solo artist, Ivan has collaborated as performer and composer in the theatrical productions Peacefire and The Voice of the Sea (Mac Uibh Aille) and has performed with numerous bands and artists including NYC-based Whirligig, Cathie Ryan, Lúnasa, Dervish and The Green Fields of America. He is currently studying for a PhD in the Music Dept of New York University.
Bruce Molsky is well known as one of the most influential exponents of Appalachian old-time country music in the world. Having learned his lessons from many of the old mountain musicians now gone, he's created his own voice, both within and outside the style. Bruce thrives on finding camaraderie and connection through music with scores of musicians in performances and recordings, most especially in his bands, from the Grammy-nominated Fiddlers 4 with Darol Anger and Michael Doucet to Mozaik with Andy Irvine and Donal Lunny. Bruce's most recent solo CD Soon Be Time (Compass Records) is an unaccompanied and personal look at "some of his favorite tunes and songs, both old and new."
Jerry O'Sullivan is one of Irish America's premier uilleann pipers. Jerry has also widely recorded on the tin whistle, the low whistle, the Highland bagpipes, and the Scottish small pipes. He has appeared on more than 90 albums and has performed or recorded with artists such as The Boston Pops, Don Henley, Paul Winter, James Galway, Dolly Parton. The Colorado Symphony Orchestra, The Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Eileen Ivers, and many others. He was a featured soloist on Paul Winter's GRAMMY winning album, Celtic Solstice (Living Music, 1999). His first two solo albums, The Gift (Shanachie, 1998), and The Invasion (Green Linnet, 1987) have both received critical acclaim, quickly finding their way to the top of a number of "best albums of the year" lists. Jerry has also recorded a number of film soundtracks including From Shore to Shore, The Long Journey Home, Far and Away, Africans in America, and Out of Ireland, and has appeared on numerous television commercials.
The Green Fields Of America
The Green Fields of America is an ensemble that showcases some of Irish America's finest traditional performing artists. It was the first group on either side of the Atlantic to bring together Irish vocal, instrumental and dance traditions on the concert and festival stage. Sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts a record five times, The Green Fields has performed all over the United States since the late 1970's.
The story of the group begins back in 1975 when Mick Moloney was commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution to carry out research in several major American cities to locate the finest Irish musicians and dancers in the country to perform at the Bicentennial Festival of American Folklife in Washington D.C the following year. For one unforgettable week in July 1976 in the nation's Capital in front of the Lincoln Memorial twenty-six of the finest Irish American musicians, singers and dancers in the United States performed alongside an equal number of performers visiting from Ireland.
The response was overwhelming. The artistic brilliance of the performances was an obvious attraction but there was something else going on as well — the kind of excitement that comes from discovery. The audiences knew that what they were seeing and hearing was a sort of hidden Irish America — the kind of grassroots, community based, culture that had always been ignored and misunderstood by the mass media. And the nation was ready for something new. Only a few years earlier African American Alex Haley had written his powerful, moving, best-selling book Roots. When it was adapted as a hugely successful television mini-series, it gripped the nation and inspired Americans of all ethnicities to become increasingly conscious of their own cultural heritage as well as the multiplicity of subcultures all around them.
Irish Americans were of course among those that developed a fascination with their own cultural roots. Responding to this national movement towards multi-cultural awareness a Washington-based community organization, The National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs, applied successfully to the National Endowment for the Arts for funding to do a national tour of Irish traditional musicians, singers and dancers. In January. 1978 the group became the first ensemble of traditional ethnic performing artists to tout the United States under official U.S. government sponsorship. The original members; Liz Carroll, Jack Coen. Father Charlie Coen, Michael Flatley, Sean McGlynn, Mick Moloney and Bill Ochs decided to take the name The Green Fields of America. This is the title of a well-known Irish jig and reel and also one of the most famous songs of Irish emigration to America. It symbolizes not only the literal reality of the rich pastures of North America but also suggests symbolically the promise of a new life for the emigrants in their adopted country.
Supported by the National Council for the Traditional Arts, The Green Fields toured again in 1979, '80 and '82 establishing itself as the leading group of touring Irish traditional artists in the United States. It Introduced many brilliant traditional musicians to the national concert stage and introduced Irish step dancing at its finest to general American audiences for the first time. Fittingly the group members were always cither Irish immigrants or American-born musicians. This was a profound validation of the ethnic culture. Up to that time American arts-sponsoring organizations had a tendency to favor visiting touring artists from abroad. But the brilliance of the immigrant and American-born artists was so obvious and the audience response so enthusiastic that this bias quickly disappeared.
The musical repertoire of the Green Fields has always been rooted in an Irish American social context and history. And this history is rich indeed. A huge repertoire of Irish American folk and popular songs highlight issues emigrants faced and the social conditions they experienced from the 1700's to the present day. Distilled from contexts tragic and uplifting these songs convey the complex evolving experience of this emigrant population through three centuries — the oppression, famine and poverty that pushed the Irish west across the ocean; a deep and abiding memory of the homeland left behind; a profound sense of sadness for loved ones lost but also celebration of new loves found. They tell of the backbreaking task of survival in the New World; the fights waged for fair treatment and fair pay for work done on railroads, canals and in mines; in construction and in factories. Remarkably this rich and complex legacy of song had been almost entirely forgotten by the twentieth century, its place taken by Tin Pan Alley songs which created and popularized an idealized romantic and largely invented image of Ireland where the homeland became an idyllic green, shamrock-strewn corner of paradise.
The instrumental Irish tradition has always flourished in America but mostly out of sight of the larger American population. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century musicians from widely separated villages in Ireland came together in the large American cities, and a rich cross fertilization of styles and repertoires ensued. These cultural traditions were as American as they were Irish. New styles and forms developed from a new generation of Irish American musicians in Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York and mainly through the classic recordings of great Irish musicians in America in the 1920's and 1930's were carried back to Ireland where they had a profound effect on the evolution of the tradition in the home country. This era has been described by many music historians as the Golden Age of Irish Music in America.
The Green Fields has always drawn on this extraordinary repository of music and song in performance and it is this focus that makes the group stand out as a unique presence among Irish ensembles in America.
The Green Fields was never designed to have a permanent lineup that would perform and tour in a conventional way. Many individual members of the group at any given time had regular jobs outside music and were unable to tour full time. Increasingly younger members of the group went on to develop their own separate full-time musical careers. Scores of the finest Irish artists in America have performed with the group over the past three decades and many, including Seamus Egan, Joanie Madden, Eileen Ivers, and John Doyle have gone on to achieve international stardom. The personnel has changed but the concept has remained constant over the past thirty years: to show, in one major ensemble, some of Irish America's finest musicians and dancers.
Five Green Fields members, Liz Carroll, Jack Coen, Michael Flatley, Donny Golden and Mick Moloney have been awarded the National Heritage Award — the highest honor that an American folk artist can achieve. Fewer than fifteen awards are handed out in the nation each year and it is astonishing and indeed unprecedented for five members of the same musical culture, let alone the same musical group, to get this most prestigious award.
The current lineup of the group emerged during a series of concerts in 2004 and 2005 at the Irish Week in the Augusta Heritage Festival in Davis and Elkins College West Virginia. The connection generated between performers and audience was positively electric. Subsequent performances at the 25th annual Irish Fest in Milwaukee and the Irish Festival in Dublin, Ohio confirmed that something really special was happening fueled by a dynamic interplay between group members. Everyone involved wanted to perform more together and began work on developing new material; hence this recording, only the second ever made by a Green Fields lineup and very appropriately on its thirtieth anniversary.
Past Members Of The Green Fields Of America: Tim Britton — Tin Whistle, Flute, Uilleann Pipes (IA); Denis Cahill — Guitar (IL); Liz Carroll — Fiddle (IL); Karan Casey — Vocals (NY/Cork Ireland); Father Charlie Coen — Tin Whistle, Flute, Concertina, Vocals (NY); Jack Coen — Tin Whistle, Flute, Concertina (NY); Brendan Dolan — Piano (NY); Jimmy Eagan — Fiddle (MD); Seamus Egan — Tin Whistle, Flute, Tenor Banjo, Mandolin, Bodhran (PA); Siobhan Egan — Fiddle, Tin Whistle, Flute (NY); Frank Harte — Singer (Dublin, Ireland); Ivan Goff — Uilleann Pipes, Flute, Whistle (NY); Winifred Horan — Fiddle, Dancer (NY); Eileen Ivers — Fiddle (NY); James Keane — Button Accordion (NY); Jimmy Keane — Piano Accordion (IL); Tina Lech — Fiddle (MA); Donna Long — Piano, Fiddle (MD); Dana Lyn — Fiddle (NY); Joannie Madden — Tin Whistle, Flute (NY); Sean McGlynn — Button Accordion (NY); Zan McLeod — Guitar, Bouzouki (MD); Michelle Mulcahy — Harp, Concertina, Fiddle, Button Accordion (Co. Limerick, Ireland); Brendan Mulvihill — Fiddle (MD); Andy O'Brien — Guitar, Vocals (DC); Eugene O'Donnell — Fiddle (PA); Kieran O'Hare — Tin Whistle, Flute, Uilleann Pipes (MD); Eamon O'Leary: — Guitar, Tenor Banjo (NY); Jerry O'Sullivan — Tin Whistle, Flute, Uilleann Pipes (NY); Bill Ochs — Tin Whistle, Flute, Uilleann Pipes (NY); Al Purcell — Tin Whistle, Flute, Uilleann Pipes (ML); Mike Rafferty — Tin Whistle, Flute, Uilleann Pipes (NJ); Tommy Sands — Guitar, Vocals, Songwriter (Co. Down, N. Ireland)
The Green Fields Dancers: Kieran Barrett (NJ); Kevin Broesler (NY); Jean Butler (Ireland); Cara Butler (NY); Heather Donovan (OH); Michael Flatley (IL); Donny Golden (NY); Eileen Golden (NY); Deirdre Goulding (MA); Liam Harney (MA); Deirdre Harten (NY). John Jennings (NJ); Sinead Lawlor (NY); Tara McHugh (DE); Shiela McGrory (PA); Chloe Mullarkey (NY);Tim O’Hare (IL); Maíread Powell (NY); Pat Roche (IL); Shiela Ryan (NY); Michael Smith (MA); John Timm (OH); Regan Wick (DC); Linnane Wick (CO)
