Programme Two

Ronan Browne

At the tender age of seven, Ronan was told he was to play the uilleann
pipes. Not knowing anyone else his age doing that at the time, he was
quite surprised and not terribly enthusiastic.

Three decades later he is a very happy lad indeed. He has close friends
the world over and has visited every continent except Antarctica - all
thanks to a little bag of sticks and seven reeds!

Ronan was taken under the various wings of the old masters who showed
him quickly what was nice - and what wasn't! While his heart is set on
playing old flat pitch Irish pipes, he loves to throw himself headlong
into anything new which comes along. He has been involved in over 75
album recordings since his first venture into the studio in 1982 and has
collaborated with many of the top artists playing traditional Irish music,
classical, pop, jazz and country.

As well as playing pipes, flute and whistle, Ronan makes up tunes all on
his own, creating strange (and sometimes very loud) sounds on computers
in his recording studio An Tobar Fuaime. Ronan's music has
appeared in many films including Circle of Friends, Rob Roy, The
Secret of Roan Inish and The Gangs of New York.

To non-musicians he is best known for his membership of the diminutive
cult super-group CRAN and as the original piper with both Riverdance
and the Afro Celt Sound System. To this day his friendship and
musical collaboration with fiddler and flute player Peter O'Loughlin is
fêted as one of the most enduring partnerships in Irish traditional music.

He lives in Conamara in the west of Ireland in a lovely bright dry house
with his partner, his son and daughter, some small wild cats, a few foxes
and pheasants, a huge heron and a herd of hares. It has recently been put
about that Ronan may be the tallest Leprechaun in the world, almost
twice the height of Ireland's smallest piper! He likes to eat ice cream and
to go flippering in the sea on hot days.

Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh

Born in Dublin at the tail end of the nineteen seventies, Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh has established himself as one of the most interesting musicians in the field of Irish traditional music today.

His early years were spent learning fiddle, whistle, flute and uilleann pipes in and around Dublin from the likes of Felim Ó Raghallaigh, Michael Tubridy and Joe Doyle, among many others. His teen years were saturated with music, festivals filling the summers, obsessive study the winters.
Through Michael Tubridy, he set up work placement at the Irish Traditional Music Archives while still in school, and continued to work part-time there during his university years studying Theoretical Physics in Trinity College Dublin.

He self-produced a solo CD "Turas go Tír na nÓg" in 1999 as a last-minute fund-raising scheme for charity work in Africa, where he spent three months of that summer building schools and working on wildlife conservation projects.

In early 2001, he and uilleann piper Mick O'Brien started a musical collaboration that led to the recording of "Kitty Lie Over" (2003, ACMCD 102), which subsequently earned Earle Hitchner's prestigious title of #1 Traditional Music Album of 2003.

In 2007, Caoimhín brought out an experimental EP "Where the One-Eyed Man is King" (2007, SOC 1357531) and a traditional EP with accordion player Brendan Begley "FYH" (2007, SOC 112409).

His experimental music has been used for film soundtracks, and he recently recorded a soundtrack for a wildlife documentary series on TG4, "Ainmhithe na hÉireann", being broadcast throughout May 2008.

He has guested on various albums and projects for other musicians, including work on "Sanas" and "Idir" for Iarla Ó Lionáird, with whom he performs and collaborates regularly. Recent important press coverage includes a full page interview on the Arts page of the Irish Times and a lengthy interview on RTE LyricFM's "the JK Ensemble", both in January 2008, and the lead article and cover of the JMI, Sept/Oct 2007.

He has been a regular contributor to traditional music television, with performance and interview contributions on 'The Raw Bar', 'Se Mo Laoch', 'Ceird an Cheoil', 'The Highland Sessions', 'Other Voices' and others, while he is currently finishing 'Faoi Lán Cheoil', a documentary for TG4 where he teaches actor Jeremy Irons how to play the fiddle.

He has performed extensively throughout Ireland, Europe and North America, and has upcoming concerts in Russia, Australia, New Zealand and Carlow.