Welcome to my Irish Songs and Stories page. The predecessor to this page was my Irish Folk Music Page on the US Robotics/3Com site. Unfortunately, they shut it down. They were a great service, but I guess all things must pass.

This page contains everything that the old one did, along with several additions. I have put up an index to the songs and stories below. I have also added lots more songs, and links to Irish musicians sites. Please feel free to make suggestions for additions. I would love to know what you think, both of the site and the stories.

Some time ago, I ran across a great site. My people are from Cork and Kerry, but this site which is in Waterford, is great!

While we are on the subject of Irish trivia, did you ever wonder about the expression, "living the life of Reily"? If so, you can get at least one explanation here.

My grandmother (Mae Cronin) was a great person for many reasons. Foremost among these was the love of Irish music that she instilled in me. Michael Crawford often tells the story of how his grandmother taught him to love music. Having had a similar experience, I can testify to how powerful an influence this is. I was blessed also to have experienced Finn McCools, which was an Irish Folk club in Cupertino. For many years they had live folk music at least four nights a week. I can't count the number of nights that I sang myself hoarse.

This page is my attempt to share some of the joy that music has bought me. You will notice that it contains several types of music. There are lots of "rebel" songs, but there are also "love" songs, Scottish songs, American Songs, and whatever else struck my fancy when I was adding to this collection. In the immortal words of Liam Clancy, "we cleaned up the dirty ones". I am well within Geocities content guidelines. (Even though they no longer host this site.) And lastly, because Mae and her generation taught us that any form of prejudice was wrong, there are even a few English songs. (And, yes, I am thinking about separating some of the types, but that will take a few weeks of work, so you should not expect it too soon!)

One of the things that is frustrating to me about this page is the lack of time to work on it. While my collection contains more than 6000 songs, I have managed to put up exactly 762 (At least two for each day of the year!) of them on this page. Please bear with me as I plod along. I have added music to some of the pages, and a listing of a few links to Irish musicians sites. Both are ongoing projects.

I have always wanted to put together list of the "Most Popular Irish Songs". Recently a visitor to the site asked me if I had one. I sent out a message to some people who's opinion I respect and asked them to send me there "top ten". The list is here.

All the best!

John

This search engine should make finding songs a little easier. I have given up on the old one. Please let me know what you think.

IRISH MUSICIANS

A listing of links to Irish musicians sites

IRISH SONGS BY TITLE

#'s A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

IRISH STORIES

Finn McCool

The Nine Convicts

IRISH STORY SITES

Irish/Celtic Ghost Stories

Seanachi - John W. Kelly - Irish Story teller

The Irish Storyteller

Stories from Kilcolman Parish collected by Forth and Fifth class at Coolderry Central School

MY STORIES

A collection of my short stories

I have put up a guest book for the Irish Songs and Stories page. Please use it for comments or suggestions for additions.

This page features music from Taylors Traditional Tunebook, and you are listening to The Bard of Armagh

As I mentioned above, this page was on another server since 06/01/96. It racked up 15862 hits on that server. The counter below was started on 11/04/00.

Site created 06/07/96 (On original server)

© 1998 John D. Casey Jr.

Most of the graphics on this page were supplied by