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Irish Music That Doesn't Suck

http://cptv.vo.llnwd.net/o2/ypmwebcontent/Commodore%20Skahill/Colin%20McEnroe%20Show%2003-17-2011.mp3

**NOTE: Today's Playlist Is Posted Below**

For many years of my adult life, I rejected Irish-American culture. I don't particularly like the way St. Patrick's Day is celebrated in this country with green beer and bad music. Growing up in the 1960s, I had few exposures to anything deeper and "rootsier" than tacky Irish-American treacle.

But there was a shift that started in the late 1980s, and I would argue that it came first in film, with "My Left Foot," "The Dead," "The Commitments," "The Crying Game" and a dozen or soother unsentimentalized movies set in Ireland. And those movies dragged new sounds along with them. At pretty much the same time U2 had climbed into international superstardom with an Irish sound that didn't pander.
 
Those movies and U2, I would argue, created a new market for Irish authenticity. For me it meant a real discovery of and immersion in traditional Irish music. 
 
Leave your comments below, e-mail colin@wnpr.org or Tweet us @wnprcolin.
 
Susan McKeown  - The Hare's Lament 
Deanta - Willie and Mary 
Jason Robert Brown -I Could Be In Love with Someone LikeYou
Solas - A Sailor's Life
Dropkick Murphys - Fields of Athenry
The High Kings - Fields of Athenry
The High Kings - Step It Out Mary
Patrick Streeet - William Taylor
Lunasa - Morning Nightcap
Luka Bloom - You Couldnt Have Come At A Better Time
Dervish - Sean Bhain
Christy Moore - Ordinary Man
T with the Maggies - Biodd Orm
La Lugh - Bealtaine

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Colin McEnroe is a radio host, newspaper columnist, magazine writer, author, playwright, lecturer, moderator, college instructor and occasional singer. Colin can be reached at colin@ctpublic.org.

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