Customer Reviews

Far From the Shamrock Shore: The Irish-American Experience in Song

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Far from the Shamrock Shore is an ambitious, expertly executed treatment of the mostly forgotten tradition of Irish-American song. The accents here are as much American as Irish, and so are the musical settings, which owe more to 19th-Century string bands than to Celtic flute-and-pipe orchestras. No one, in other words, will confuse what he or she hears with an Altan or Chieftains recording. Instead, Celtic-revival pioneer and folklorist Mick Moloney highlights the varieties of music sung and performed by a people finding their way in a New World; though they have not forgotten where they came from, the old country is receding into fond memory and sentimental mist.

The result is a wide-ranging selection of period folk ballads and popular songs. In those days, Moloney shows, these two genres often overlapped, and they freely plundered each other's lyrics and melodies. Though written by Dan Emmett (the Northern minstrel-show composer best known for "Dixie"), the terrific "Boatman's Dance" sounds as authentic a riverman's song as "Rock About My Saro Jane." Moloney, in fact, speculates that Emmett may have based "Dance" on a forgotten Ohio River song sung by African-American boatmen.

More representative of a purer, older Irish tradition are "Green Grows the Laurel," "Paddy Works on the Railway" (done in a variant you probably have not heard before), "You Lovers All," and "Erin's Green Shore." Several powerful Civil War-era songs -- including the irresistible patriotic rouser and barroom bellow "The Irish Volunteer" -- attest to the significant role newly arrived Irish immigrants played in that great and bloody conflict.

This is a splendid recording, an excursion into history full of the passion, humor, hard times, and wonderful music of those who lived it and made it.

As for fans of Trad...traditional Irish Music, Far From the Shamrock Shore by Mick Moloney, it just doesn't get any better than this CD. Each song will make you tap your toes and listen along to his musical story, "The Irish-American Story" in song. The first song, the Boatman's Dance, sets the tone for a great listen.

For fans of Irish Trad, this CD is a must!

Bought this to learn one specific track, and liked a lot more of it. Nothing makes it stand out particularly from the many other Irish albums, but it stands comparison with most. The musicianship is generally very good and some of the songs are less commonly found. This is not your Daniel O'Donnell or Fureys slightly-too-sweet stuff. It's much better than that.