Any Irish-language music recommendations apart from Enya/Clannad?

[n_j_f]

As part of learning Irish, I would like to incorporate music and lyrics into my studies. Can anyone recommend something that's a bit more indie/alternative? Now, before anyone tells me to "Google it" . . . I've done lots of searches and can't seem to find anything apart from traditional folk or vaguely New Age-y stuff like Enya, Clannad, etc. Each to their own, but the typical fiddle-tin whistle-accordion Irish music is not really my cup of tea.

It's a tall order, but can anyone recommend any Irish-language music, especially neo-folk, dark wave or something (neo)-classical? Not a huge fan of pop music or stuff like that, but happy to go out of my comfort zone if need be.

Thanks in advance.

[Xenops]

Moya/Marie Brennan was a singer for Clannad, and she has her own stuff. I believe she and Enya are sisters. She does have a lot of Christian content in her songs.

[Josquin]

As you say, most of the music in Irish belongs to the category traditional Irish music, i.e. tin-whistle, accordion, etc.

However, there are some people trying to bring traditional Irish music into the 21st century, such as:

Liam Ó Maonlaí


Maria McCool


Seo Linn


The UCD Choral Scholars


There's even an Irish version of Adele's "Hello", although the Irish in it is rather questionable


Other than that, you'll be hard-pressed to find "modern" music in Irish. Irish is closely related to traditional Gaeltacht culture, while everything modern in Ireland seems to be happening in English.

[William Camden]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJWRkCfq1K0

Karan Casey from County Waterford sings some Irish-language songs although they too tend to be traditional.

[jeff_lindqvist]

I don't know of any dark wave/neo-folk/neo-classical music in Irish (and I personally associate neo-classical with art/music/architecture from the late 1700s into the early 1800s - or indeed neo-classical heavy metal by fellow countryman Yngwie J. Malmsteen or Vinnie Moore).

Most of the Irish I hear is trad, and since you don't want pop either, you can ignore TG Lurgan (the ones mentioned above doing covers) or Inni-K (who occasionally sings in Irish). You mention Enya and Clannad (not that they're super trad either - if that matters), so something semi-trad like Nightnoise might fit the bill. Not too much pop, not too traditional, not too New Agey or "Celtic" (no harps, no druids...). If nothing else, you get "authentic" Irish since siblings Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill and Mícheál Ó Domhnaill draw a lot of their repertoire from Rann na Feirste. And should you ever want traditional songs in Irish without fiddle etc. there's plenty. Just give me a shout.

[galaxyrocker]

Unfortunately, you're not going to find much stuff that isn't traditional. And what you do find will likely be sung by non-native speakers and is, for the most part, not really a good resource (directly translated from English in idioms, horrible pronunciation, etc.). That said, you can find some new sean-nós singing, and newly composed songs. You might also look through Youtube for some stuff from the Oireachtas as well. There was a rock group back in the 80s, the Fírín, or something like that. They didn't do much, I think only two songs are on Youtube, but they have one about Oisín that I really like, so you could try that.

[n_j_f]

I don't know of any dark wave/neo-folk/neo-classical music in Irish (and I personally associate neo-classical with art/music/architecture from the late 1700s into the early 1800s - or indeed neo-classical heavy metal by fellow countryman Yngwie J. Malmsteen or Vinnie Moore).

Most of the Irish I hear is trad, and since you don't want pop either, you can ignore TG Lurgan (the ones mentioned above doing covers) or Inni-K (who occasionally sings in Irish). You mention Enya and Clannad (not that they're super trad either - if that matters), so something semi-trad like Nightnoise might fit the bill. Not too much pop, not too traditional, not too New Agey or "Celtic" (no harps, no druids...). If nothing else, you get "authentic" Irish since siblings Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill and Mícheál Ó Domhnaill draw a lot of their repertoire from Rann na Feirste. And should you ever want traditional songs in Irish without fiddle etc. there's plenty. Just give me a shout.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Enya and Clannad I would tend to put into the "new age" category rather than the traditional category. Although I'm not adverse to folk music — Shirley Collins being one of my favourite vocalists — I tend to find a lot of folk music to be too 'samey' and more suited for festivals and the like. I wouldn't say I 'dislike' it, it just doesn't do anything for me.

With its emphasis on Indo-European identity and traditions, I was hoping that there were one or two neo-folk artists that recorded at least partly in Irish. Considering almost complete absence of Irish-as-a-first-language, genres like dark wave would be too much of a stretch. The only music I've really come across that would be outside the traditional folk and the new age genres, would be a black metal band called Primordial who have been around since the mid-90s (only some of their songs are in Irish) and Eithne, an opera by Robert O'Dwyer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTtCcOwmIXo).