Saint Patrick’s Day Playlist

All Propers of the Feast

Weren’t that a picture of me playin’ the mandolin?

As many of you might already know, I have a long history as a musician dating back to my youth when I started playing bars at the age of fourteen. Though I left the music business long ago, at least in terms of pursuing fame and fortune, I still play all the time, write songs often, and come out of my lair to play the occasional gig or recording session. Most of my musical activities over my life—and this goes back forty years at this point (which shocks even me)—has been on the frontier of Celtic music, where trad meets contemporary. This was true in my twenties when I led a band called Robb Roy (named after the legendary Scot) and through my association with my mates in The Corktown Popes.

This love for the Celts I came by honestly. First of all, I was inspired by my grandfather, a great working-class Irish tenor named Michael Patrick Conlon, who emigrated to the US, alone, at the age of sixteen. In addition, my best friend growing up and with whom I started Robb Roy when we were in our early twenties was from Scotland and we always wanted to incorporate Irish and Scottish elements into the music we wrote.

Saint Patrick’s Day growing up was not a day of drunkenness and frivolity, but it was a day we’d go to visit my grandparents and my grandmother would show us the letters and rosaries his mother sent to my grandfather from Ireland. But it’s always been a day of music. So, in that spirit, I thought I’d share some of my favorite songs orbiting the Celtosphere.

“If I Should Fall from Grace with God” by the Pogues. I love watching the audience bounce in this one.

“The Wedding Jig / Hiudai Gallagher's March / James Byrne's / Mickey Doherty's / Welcome Home Grainn” by Altan

How can I not include “The Wedding Jig”? It’s the song to which my wife walked down the aisle (actually a path in our garden) when we were married many years ago. Just a couple o’ kids with a dream.

And speaking of my wife, here’s Kate Bush’s “The Sensual World.” For a while there in my dreamlife, Kate Bush was the cipher for my wife, Bonnie. They look a lot alike. A word of advice: NEVER tell your wife you had a dream you were married to Kate Bush. If you don’t know, what’s particularly wonderful about this song is that it’s an adaptation of Molly Bloom’s soliloquy from James Joyce’s Ulysses.

And, what the heck, here’s a spoken adaptation of Molly’s soliloquy from a television production. You made need tissue.

And now let us plunge deep into the heart of Celtic mysticism with Clannad’s “Theme from Harry’s Game.” The first time I heard this song was almost a religious experience. And I’m STILL PISSED the Clannad 50th anniversary tour—for which I had tickets—was cancelled because of Covid in 2020.

Any list like this would be incomplete without something from The Waterboys. There’s a wealth to choose from, but none lovelier than “When Ye Go Away.”

I have a soft spot for Altan in general and their version of “Dulaman” in particular,

because a few years ago my daughter, Mae, wanted to perform it at our Michaelmas festival. Here we are in the kitchen rehearsing.

And now I throw a curve ball: Van Morrison’s “Jackie Wilson Said”

And, finally, I have to include “The Minstrel Boy” which my grandfather would sing sometimes late into the night of a family party, no doubt under the influence of a few jars and a couple small ones. This version is by Aoife Scott from the television series Rebellion. Ireland has such a troubled history. It also has, as far as I can tell, a troubled future. Saint Patrick, pray for us.