Drogheda man Seán Corcoran has been involved in both performance and research into Irish song and music since his schooldays and he is now internationally recognised as one of the leading experts in the field, appearing on major stages all over Europe, lecturing at third-level institutions, carrying out fieldwork projects, producing albums and CDs and filming for television and film documentaries.

He is mainly known as a vocalist, specialising in Irish traditional styles and he plays mandocello and other plucked string instruments, and with his three-piece CRAN (with flute-player Desi Wilkinson and piper Ronan Browne) he has produced 5 highly-acclaimed albums.

He was one of the pioneers of modern fieldwork collecting in Ireland, beginning with a collection of the songs of Louth in the 1970s and he has since documented song, music and dance traditions all over Ireland on behalf of agencies like the Irish Folklore Commission, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, the Ulster Folk Museum and the Irish Traditional Music Archive.

He wrote and presented the highly-acclaimed 3x50min TV documentaries, Na Bailitheoirí Ceoil which surveys the collection of Irish music from the 1790s onwards, for TG4. It was first broadcast in 2009 and has had many repeat broadcasts.

His skills as a teacher and educationalist are widely sought after and he regularly gives workshops at events like the Willie Clancy Summer School in Clare and at many international festivals. At present he is also lecturer in Irish Music at the Mary I College of Limerick University.

Currently he is carrying out a major composition project for the Arts Council of Ireland and has been awarded funding from the BAI for a pioneering series of radio documentaries.