Song for Ireland

De Danann with Mary Black

album cover

A Love Letter to a Celtic Home

The goddess Danu and her people, the Tuatha De Danann, hold a special place in Irish-Celtic mythology. Considered a race of Irish "gods," they perfected magic for their own use, and allegedly traveled on a big cloud to settle the land that became Ireland.

The band De Danann, catalysts in the evolution of traditional Irish music, became popular for their own kind of magic—the ability to conjure a lost (and possibly mythical) Ireland through jigs and reels and lachrymose songs of despair. The band started at Sunday morning jam sessions in the early 1970s at the Hughes Pub in Spiddal, a small County Galway town. Organized by the fiddler Frankie Gavin and guitarist Alec Finn (still the only constant members), these informal sessions grew into a thriving hub of traditional music, through which have come important Irish singers—Dolores Keane, Maura O'Connell, and, most consequentially, Mary Black.

Song for Ireland features Black, whose cool detachment is a perfect complement to the athletic and gregarious Gavin. De Danann is known for transforming stock pub entertainments into pieces that are exceedingly vivacious; the lively excursions here are offset by more somber tunes that allow Black to shine. Though the album was recorded shortly after Black joined up with De Danann, it sounds as if they've been playing together for years. When Black hits her stride—on "Hard Times" and "Mulqueen's Reels," among others—she shows a heavy Celtic heart and a deep love for the land that inspired the project, which feels like the longing reflections of one who's far away from home.

Genre: World, Celtic
Released: 1983, Sugar Hill
Key Tracks: "Hard Times," "Turkey in the Straw," "Mulqueen's Reels."
Catalog Choice: De Danann: The Mist-Covered Mountain. Mary Black: By the Time It Gets Dark.
Next Stop: Altan: Harvest Storm
Book Pages: 215–216