As one of the pre-Walkman/ipod generation I have been a whistler, (freestyle, acapella, whistle-less?), for my own entertainment for as long as I can remember. On my first trip to Ireland recently I bought a whistle, (Waltons D), as a bit of a joke/souvenir and have become a bit obsessed with playing it. My knowledge of musical theory is a bit sketchy and I play by ear, able to pick up a tune quite easily I enjoy playing along to recordings and am starting to assemble a playlist. It’s rather random and I don’t discriminate against any genre so long as it is in the key of D or shares enough notes with my whistle that I can follow the melody or play some sort of harmony. I suspect that some of them may never have been tin whistled before 
It’s a work in progress and I’m adding more as I find them.
https://open.spotify.com/user/mzsupa5/playlist/0r3kTEMoM5FBzQ2u7cgjP5
Has anyone else done the same? Any suggested additions?
TonyC
Hi Tony,
Many would say if a song doesn’t already have a whistle in it, it might not be worth your time trying to learn it. Otherwise, you might end up doing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsdCGQbbd8k.
I do see you have some songs by the Pogues and Dubliners. They definitely have some slower whistle parts that are good for beginners (ex, Dirty Old Town). Seemingly like you, my interest in the whistle came about first from hearing it incorporated into folk rock bands (my introduction was in this order: Dropkick Murphys, Flogging Molly, The Tossers, and then The Pogues). When asked about my inspiration during my first whistle lesson, my instructor pointed out that “these aren’t traditional Irish tunes.” I then started to learn about the session tunes, which are mostly instrumental. Since then I noticed that in fact many sections of traditional tunes are used by the folk rock bands that got me interested in the whistle in the first place. For instance, Flogging Molly’s “Salty Dog” uses “The Kesh” jig as its main melody. For sheet music for session tunes, go to https://thesession.org/; when you click on the tunes tab, you’ll see The Kesh is the second-most popular.
OK, so here’s my point. If you want to keep learning more Irish folk rock songs (and don’t be ashamed to), I found Pandora to be more useful. For a Spotify playlist, you almost already need to know what you want to listen to, which has its advantages, but not in this case. So, if you like the sound of the Pogues but want to learn of different bands/songs, create a Pogues station on Pandora. If you want to learn more of the traditional session tunes, which is what I’m trying to do now, create a “Solas” or “Lunasa” station. These are two well-known groups that play more of the trad stuff. In either case, on Pandora you might learn of a band you really like, and then you can build a Spotify playlist off of that.
On another note, if you want some good (free) online instruction, go to YouTube and search for ‘Ryan Duns whistle.’
Anyway, I’m still a bit of a noob, so this is just my two cents. I’d be interested in hearing what others have to say. But I have a feeling I’m not the only one who thinks the music gods might get angry if you play Abba on the whistle.
Jeff