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55 albums · 1959–2024

Music of Ireland, from the Clancys, Ó Riada and Planxty to Thin Lizzy, U2, Sinéad O'Connor and Lankum

· 2 min read · by 1001 Albums

Lankum on a dark stage under blue light, Radie Peat singing at a harmonium with a concertina at her feet, a drummer and a trumpeter behind
Paddy Moloney of the Chieftains seated on stage with the chanter and drones of his uilleann pipes across his lapSinéad O'Connor singing into a microphone and playing an electric guitar, a bassist behind her
Lankum at the Roundhouse in London, December 2023. Photo: Paul Hudson, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Paddy Moloney of the Chieftains with his uilleann pipes at the Cambridge Folk Festival, 2006. Photo: Bryan Ledgard, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Sinéad O'Connor at the Festival interceltique de Lorient, 2013. Photo: XIIIfromTOKYO, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Ireland's music has the reels, jigs and slow airs of the uilleann pipes, fiddle, flute and button accordion at its root, and the unaccompanied sean-nós song of Connemara and Munster: Willie Clancy's pipes from Clare, Joe Heaney's songs from Carna, Seán Ó Riada's Ceoltóirí Chualann and the Chieftains after them, the ballads of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem and the Dubliners, then Planxty, the Bothy Band, Andy Irvine and Paul Brady, De Dannan, Altan from Donegal, Sharon Shannon, Liam O'Flynn, Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill, Iarla Ó Lionáird, the Gloaming, Lisa O'Neill and Lankum. Beside it run the songs of Christy Moore, Mary Black, Dolores Keane and Mary Coughlan, Clannad and Enya from Gweedore, Horslips' Táin, the rock and blues of Them, Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, Rory Gallagher and Thin Lizzy, the Boomtown Rats and the Undertones, U2, Microdisney, Hothouse Flowers, Sinéad O'Connor, My Bloody Valentine, the Cranberries, the Corrs and the Divine Comedy, Gilbert O'Sullivan, the Frames, Damien Rice, Damien Dempsey, Róisín Murphy, Lisa Hannigan, Villagers and Hozier, Gilla Band and Fontaines D.C., CMAT, the rap of Rejjie Snow and Denise Chaila and Kneecap's in Irish from Belfast, with John O'Conor's nocturnes of John Field for a nod to the concert hall. The list takes the island as its music does, Belfast and Derry beside Dublin and Cork. The list has 55 records from 1959 to 2024, one or two by each of the names above and only a small part of what they made; the Pogues and the Waterboys, bands of London and Scotland that played Irish music, are left out, Moving Hearts and Sweeney's Men are missing because Deezer has none of their studio records, and the showbands and country and Irish, the céilí bands, the music of the emigrants in America and Britain and most of the classical tradition would each need a list of their own. About 47 hours of music, 5 days of a few records each.

By genre

Folk & Country 42%Rock 31%Pop 8%Other 19%
  • Folk & Country 42%
  • Rock 31%
  • Pop 8%
  • Other 19%

The genres named most: folk, rock, irish folk, celtic, pop, blues rock.

The colours of the covers

A stripe for each cover, in the colour Tidal picks from it, sorted by hue; the greys at the end.

Where the music comes from

Music from 2 countries: Ireland 50, United Kingdom 5. The deeper the colour, the more albums: one, two to four, five to nine, ten and more.

The 1950s

The 1960s

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

The 2010s

The 2020s

More lists

Lists of Countries first, then others; all of them on the blog. The blog.