WOW came today WOW
Every cut is riveting, seriously!
Giv’em the Irish Name Mrs. L, so they know what you’re talking about
SEOLTAI’ SE’IDTE
Joe Heany is in excellent voice in these recordings and Sean’ac Dhonncha is FANTASTIC.
I have wanted to hear female Sean Nos voiceing and here it is with Maire Nic Dhonnchadha.
Lovely.
I was wondering if that set of CDs were good… another purchase…
Baglady, I too have been enjoying this set of CD’s very much. It has been my first exposure to sean-nos singing. It took me quite a lot of listening to get used to something so different than anything I had heard before. Now I just love listening to these songs—I listen every night after I go to bed. I am finding the instrumental parts to be very interesting too. I think every time a person listens to these CD’s you can hear something new.
I watched about half of the Celtic Woman show on TV. I was quite surprised to hear the second song that Sean 'ac Dhonncha sings on the first CD [She’s Your Granny—Is I Do Mhamo I (that took a long time to type!)]. They sang it really fast, with drums and a good beat. I think the audience would have rated it a 10. 
I felt angry about it at first, but then I just decided to relax and I have to admit that I did rather enjoy it. 
fel bautista, the CD set also includes an excellent booklet giving the words as sung in Irish along with a very literal English translation for each song. You really can follow along with each phrase, if not always each word. There are short bio’s and pictures of every musician as well.
My first plunge into Sean Nos was all the way feet first with Darach O’ Catha’ins CD from Shanachie. I found it hard to listen to even though I had been dabbling in Scottish Poirt A Buel and other traditional singing. Maybe it was too much singing all at once with no instrumentals breaking it up. As I began to play and understand the music I could recognize the songs and now enjoy it so much more than all the modernized stuff you hear. I do a more modern version of the songs because it is new to me and most people don’t understand what is going on so don’t enjoy straight up Sean Nos. I was playing the Gael linn CD and the Bag Lord said “Oh, put that old man out of his misery.” That’s funny because he is a very accomplished piper but hasn’t made the crossover from pub songs yet.
fel bautista> , the CD set also includes an excellent booklet giving the words as sung in Irish along with a very literal English translation for each song. You really can follow along with each phrase, if not always each word. There are short bio’s and pictures of every musician as well.
I found the history of Gael Linn itself, also in the book, to be very interesting. They funded what has become a large cultural organization with a pool. Everybody put in a few bucks and so it began. Just think, if each member of this sight put up a couple of bucks we could fund the restoration and distribution of the just discovered collection of O’Niel wax cylinders mentioned on another forum.
You know, that’s a really interesting idea. I mean, we’ve got technical people (rerecording/remastering), rich people (funding), and poor people who like to talk a lot (ie, marketing) … Hmmmm. I wonder? That might be a cool C&F sort of thing to do, and least in part …
Where was that forum? Would you mind pointing me to it? Thanks!
BTW, your avatar is brilliant. And “BagLord” made me snort. Tx for the grins!
Someone else coined the old man’s moniker so I can’t take credit for that one.
Look in the Upipe forum for the O’Neill discovery.
They found those recordings in my backyard. If the Milwaukee Irish Fair gave a grant and then Target did one of their matching fund things and then people donated a couple of bucks you could fund an archive and save all of the recordings being lamented about. With some real musicians on the board, it could be highly accessible.
Well, there goes my million dollar idea. 