The animations that formed the basis of the Anam An Amhráin TG4 are now available on DVD through Cartoon Saloon.

Fiddle player and composer Liz Carroll did an 'illustrated' interview recently with the National Endowment for the Arts, and spoke at length about her musical life in Chicago, the nature of traditional Irish music, the culture of

Cathy Jordan’s new album, All the Way Home, is her first solo project in a career of over twenty years. Paul O'Connor talks to her about how it differs from her work with Dervish and the Unwanted.

Ciaran Carson's novel The Star Factory will be performed in Belfast using a John Cage score, to mark Cage's centenary.

Published by Na Píobairí Uilleann, the fourth in the DVD series 'Piper’s Choice' presents the playing and insights of three more players: Séan Potts, Brian MacNamara and Peter Browne.

The launch event for the Frankie Kennedy Winter School (27 December 2011 to 1 January 2012) took place yesterday, hosted by Conor Byrne's Liffey Banks Sessions team at the Grand Social.

First up is the Ceoltóirí Chualann concert on 8 December at Cork Opera House. The current line-up includes several original members: Seán Keane, Seán Potts, Michael Tubridy, Éamon de Buitléar and Ronnie McShane.

A Stór Mo Chroí is a new compilation of songs from the record company of IML Irish Music Licensing, compiled by Celtic Note manager, Colm O’Siochain.

News of Four Men and a Dog tour, Dave Flynn scores, 3/Triúr gig, Trí60 series and Soilse na Nollag at the National Concert Hall.

Téada's Oisín Mac Diarmada is heading to the USA this week with six other musicians to ensure Irish traditional music is a part of the build-up to Christmas for American fans.

Any traditional music groups or individual performers interested in being considered for one of these showcases should email a link to their website to [email protected] before 15 December or post a CD to the IMRO office.

Promoter Oliver O’Connell and academic Tommy Fegan have published a collection of material that examines the relationship between traveller culture and traditional Irish music.

The second edition of the Companion to Irish Traditional music has been published, with approximately 200 contributors, 650 biographies, 880 pages, 1,800 A-Z entries, 5,000 names dropped, and a total of 560,000 words.

This year’s Clare Festival of Traditional Singing, which starts on Friday, 18 November, is on the theme of ‘Travellers and Fellow Travellers’ and will feature the inimitable singing of Thomas McCarthy.

Formed in 2010, This Is How We Fly consists of Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh on fiddle and hardanger fiddle, Seán Mac Erlaine on bass clarinet, saxophones & live electronics, percussive dancer Nic Gareiss, and Petter Berndalen on drums and per

There will be a launch event for the 2011 School presented by the Liffey Banks Sessions at 8pm on 29 November in the Grand Social, featuring Altan and guests Fidil, Steve Cooney, Maighréad and Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill, Breanndán Ó Beaglaoich, a

News of recordings forthcoming from the likes of Fidil, Phil Callery, Eithne Ní Chatháin, Denis Liddy and Kevin Crawford.

Bill Whelan, Grammy-winning composer of Riverdance, has been awarded the 2011 University College Dublin Foundation Day Medal.

Breanndán Ó Beaglaoich is about to start a small tour of select venues, mostly along the west coast, to promote his new CD, Fé Scáth / In the Shadow.

Paddy O'Brien, All-Ireland accordion champion from County Offaly, has released the second volume of his tune collecting project, the Paddy O’Brien Tune Collection.

Irish harp music has evolved and diversified in recent history – now it ranges from the pub session to historical reconstructions and new-age airs.

Ciaran Carson cherishes the moments when listening is important.

Funding for the arts is essential, but without the right approach it can blunt artists’ entrepreneurial skills, writes Toner Quinn

In the Irish-speaking areas of Ireland, visitors are sometimes frustrated because they speak Irish to locals and are responded to in English.

Student dancers at the Belltable Arts Centre, Limerick, May 2008: photograph from a current exhibition at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick, by Maurice Gunning, photographer-in-residence at the Academy

A nineteenth-century Irish flute player c. 1888 in ‘The Schoolmaster’s Moment of Leisure’, a watercolour and gouache by the American artist Howard Helmick (1845–1907) in the collections of the National Gallery of Ireland

The melody of ‘Danny Boy’ has its origins in the middle of the nineteenth century in the North of Ireland. An old harper’s melody was collected and embellished to make the air that we know today, but by who?

A group of prominent Irish emigrant traditional musicians in The Bedford Arms pub, Arlington Road, Camden Town, London, c.

"Memory is more of a narrative, a plausible story, than an exact recording of events or circumstances", finds Ciaran Carson in the thirteenth article of his series on traditional music.

Niall Keegan’s article, which dealt with the ‘language’ of traditional music, set me thinking about the term ‘sean-nós’ in reference to traditional singing. ‘Sean-nós’ means ‘old style’ and...

Having read Dáithí Kearney’s response to my article ‘Let Go of the Language of the Past’ in the Dec/Jan issue, I feel I should 
respond and clarify my position. I agree that we 
can and must seek example and inspiration...

Daithí Kearney, Castlemartyr, Co.

He was a cantankerous eccentric who stressed that the Irish language and music were inseparable. Richard Henebry should not be forgotten, writes Ciaran Carson