Folk/Traditional/Cabaret Artists

Currently listing 119 Folk Artists with many more to come!

As the showband era and the legacy of the British Beat groups began to wane across the world, Ireland's slumbering folk scene was revived. Although Ireland's folk and traditional music had a long and deep history, it had been put on the back burner during the heady days of the ballrooms. Unlike Ceili music, folk wasn't really for dancing, and in the 60's and 70's there weren't many concert venues available across the country.

Folk and traditional hadn't gone away during those years, it was just relegated to the small confines of pubs and lounges where "sessions" were a regular part of life. On the national scene, the music had taken a back seat to the showbands, country, and pop groups. In fact, many folk singers were enticed by the lure of the ballroom scene and several embarked on ill-fated "showband-like" excursions into the ballrooms.

Despite this, the resurgence of Irish folk and traditional music can trace it's roots back to the late 1950's and early 1960's. Back then, Ireland had to export much of it's music to the rest of the world, especially Canada and the United States. Groups like The Chieftains, Clancy Brothers, and others, regularly toured the world with their rousing choruses, traditional reels and jigs and drinking songs.

It was actually the Clancy Brothers that were first on the scene. In the mid fifties, Liam Clancy and Tommy Makem emigrated to the United States in an attempt to become actors. With Liam's brothers, they formed the Clancy Brothers with Tommy Makem and after an appearance on the legendary Ed Sullivan Show (the same show that broke The Beatles in the USA), the group was launched into stardom. They were one of the many groups that enjoyed success during the folk revival of the early sixties which included the likes of Peter, Paul and Mary, among others.

Around this time, Christy Moore, after attending Newbridge College in Co. Kildare, went to work in a bank for three years and during the bank strike of 1966, he went to England to work on the oil rigs in the North Sea. When the strike ended, Christy came back to Ireland, collected his back pay, and returned to England determined to make it as a folk singer. In 1970, he met record producer Bill Leader in London and together they came to Prosperous, Co. Kildare, to make a landmark album. Christy recruited Donal Lunny, another native of Newbridge, Liam O'Flynn (an uilleann piper from Kill, Co. Kildare), and Andy Irvine from Sweeney's Men. The lineup was augmented with Clive Collins on fiddle, Dave Bland on concertina and Kevin Conneff on bodhran. The album 'Prosperous', recorded in the basement of Christy's sister's house proved to be the birth of Planxty.

After Planxty, things were never to be the same for Ireland's folk/traditional scene. The influences of people like Christy Moore, Liam O'Flynn, Andy Irvine, Paul Brady, Matt Molloy, Donal Lunny, (all members of Planxty at one time or another) and others, would define the genre for a generation.

The rise in popularity of this new breed of folk also gave rise to the explosion of Folk Festivals that dotted the Irish countryside for more than a decade. Massive crowds migrated to places like Ballisodare and Lisdoonvarna to enjoy ample helpings of this new, exciting form of Irish music. Through the 1970's, more bands joined the folk revival in Ireland including names like The Bothy Band, De Danann, and Clannad. In fact, Clannad enjoyed international success when one of their songs, Theme from Harry's Game, became a major hit record in the U.K. Since then they have gone on to become one of Ireland's top acts, as well as their former member, Enya, who has enjoyed even more success with her approach to "new age" pop music.

The culmination of the growth of Ireland's traditional music scene came in 1994 when Bill Whelan's original composition, Riverdance, was performed during the "interlude" of the Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin. Needless to say, the performance of Michael Flatley and Jean Butler, along with Whelan's inspirational orchestrated "traditional" score took the world by storm and the rest is history. The success of Riverdance across the globe has taken Irish music to a whole new level of worldwide popularity and acceptance and continues to be a major influence on the international entertainment scene.

Meanwhile, another form of entertainment was enriched by the influences of the showband era, cabaret. As the showbands were breaking attendance records across the country in the early 1960's and the folk boom was happening, a new type of venue began to emerge, the singing lounge or cabaret room. These venues were more than just pubs and although they started in the larger cities and towns, they soon spread to every corner of Ireland, competing for the crowds that had once been the exclusive "property" of the ballrooms.

Folk acts like Johnny McEvoy and Danny Doyle were the first to dominate the cabaret landscape, but soon they were joined by former showband stars like Butch Moore and Sonny Knowles. Singers like Alma Carroll and Dana, who would never make it on the dance-oriented ballroom scene, found fame and success in cabaret. Soon all type of novelty and comedy acts (like the Rib Ticklers and Brendan Grace) found homes on the cabaret scene. Eventually, when the ballrooms died away in the early 80's, all that seemed to be left was cabaret and country and western clubs, until the theatre boom of the 1990's.                

Click here for Folk/Trad/Cabaret Group photo gallery (all the photos so far in our collection).

Click on band name (if highlighted) to see photo.