Irish Music

Thunderheads, be prepared to set sail this fall. Irish band Celtic Thunder plus a slew of other Irish music performers will headline a four-night cruise aboard the MSC Divina from Miami to the Bahamas. Those who want to immerse themselves in the floating song fest -- from Irish standards to musical theater to a little pop rock -- will be entertained by the band's Keith Harkin, George Donaldson, Ryan Kelly, Neil Byrne and Colm Keegan. The cruise ship leaves Miami and stops at Nassau and the private island of Thunder Bay. Fans receive assigned seating (based on order of sign-up)

Thunderheads, be prepared to set sail this fall. Irish band Celtic Thunder plus a slew of other Irish music performers will headline a four-night cruise aboard the MSC Divina from Miami to the Bahamas. Those who want to immerse themselves in the floating song fest -- from Irish standards to musical theater to a little pop rock -- will be entertained by the band's Keith Harkin, George Donaldson, Ryan Kelly, Neil Byrne and Colm Keegan. The cruise ship leaves Miami and stops at Nassau and the private island of Thunder Bay. Fans receive assigned seating (based on order of sign-up)

Ojai musician-storyteller Seabury Gould will perform works from his upcoming CD of Irish music Friday for a St. Patrick's Day concert. Held at Ojai Coffee Roasting, the performance will include Celtic folk songs, sing-alongs and Irish yarns. Gould will be joined by James Schaller on guitar and Renee Peggie, a vocalist. * Seabury Gould, Friday, 7:30 p.m., Ojai Coffee Roasting, 337 E. Ojai Ave. $5 general; $3.50 seniors. 646-6212.

When the luck of the Irish holds, the lovers buy Claddagh rings for their valentines, frat boys gearing up for St. Paddy's Day go for Guinness caps with built-in bottle openers - and come Christmas, there's a run on plum pudding and St. Nicks in Kelly green. But holidays alone don't explain how a small Irish store survives year after year in a Hollywood mini-mall. The plain brown shopping complex set back from Vine Street houses the usual suspects: a pawnshop, check cashing, Thai massage, tattoos.

Singer-songwriter Emmylou Harris will narrate a St. Patrick's Day special to be broadcast on the Disney Channel, titled "Irish Music and America . . . A Musical Migration." The program on March 17 will look at the influences of Irish music in American culture. U2's Bono will perform, as well as other artists including Elvis Costello, the Everly Brothers and Ricky Skaggs.

It's no accident that any given list of the best-selling world music albums will include a healthy set of Irish music recordings. The reasons are obvious: The language (except for songs sung in Gaelic) is familiar, and the rhythms and melodies of Ireland continue to resonate in bluegrass and country. Equally important, Irish music has an extraordinary emotional range, from spirited jigs to passionate ballads.

For those whose idea of Irish music begins with "Danny Boy" and ends "When Irish Eyes are Smiling," St. Patrick's Day offers a perfect excuse to seek out its other, traditional forms: the rollicking tunes more authentic than green beer and as rich as a glass of Guinness.

The Harp Consort is a band of antiquarians with gusto and a mission: to bring music of long ago into the here and now. The musical subject Sunday afternoon at UCLA's Schoenberg Hall was "Carolan's Harp," selected pieces by the blind 17th century Irish harpist and composer Turlough O'Carolan. Founded in 1994 and led by nimble Irish harpist and psaltery player Andrew Lawrence-King, the Harp Consort attends to its musical duties with no small measure of early music scholarship and seriousness.

One way to keep a band together for a quarter of a century is to avoid too much togetherness. Paddy Moloney, who has led the Chieftains through 25 years as the preeminent group in Irish traditional music, says that keeping a little distance has helped keep the band members close. "We keep away from one another," Moloney said over the phone this week in his good-natured Dublin brogue. "There's a rule that when we book into a hotel, we don't want to be next to each other.

"As Susannah York put it, 'Irish music gets you right in the gut!' " Paddy Moloney, his shillelagh-thick brogue crackling over the telephone line from his hotel room in New York, had landed one of his patented combinations. An unabashed shill for Irish music, the puckish leader of Ireland's most popular traditional band, the Chieftains, had simultaneously made a sales pitch and invoked a well-known British actress.

To lovers of James Joyce and Irish literature, June 16 has a special significance. It's known as Bloomsday, named for Leopold Bloom, the main character in Joyce's "Ulysses. " The notoriously challenging novel blasted through formal conventions and become an iconic work of modernist fiction; its 600-plus pages take place in Dublin over the course of a single day, June 16, 1904. And on Saturday, Angelenos can celebrate the occasion by attending dramatic readings, listening to Irish music and naturally raising a glass of Guinness.

Casey's St. Patrick's Day The Irish bar ? one of the prideful and proper in Los Angeles ? closes down Grand Avenue for a celebration that will include music from the Los Angeles Police Emerald Society Pipe and Drum Band, DJs and live music from a U2 cover band. Casey's , 613 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles. 6 a.m.-2 a.m. No cover. St. Patrick's Day Festival This is a big whammy of Irish pride featuring a mini-parade, Irish food and drink, the Los Angeles Police Emerald Society Pipe and Drum Band (busy day for these guys)

Tommy Makem, a musician, singer and master storyteller who teamed up with the Clancy Brothers to popularize traditional Irish folk music around the world, has died. He was 74. Makem died of lung cancer Wednesday in Dover, N.H., where he lived for many years, his son Conor told the Associated Press. Playing banjo, tin whistle and singing in a deep baritone, Makem was known as the Godfather of Irish music for bringing Irish culture to audiences.

At first glance, "A Woman's Heart," a program of Irish music at Royce Hall on Thursday, suggested similarities with "Celtic Woman," which was presented at the Greek Theatre a few weeks ago. Both featured female singers performing Irish repertoire. But the comparisons end there.

As a female, American-born fiddler who insists on honing an expansive repertoire of original tunes, Liz Carroll has become a revered figure in traditional Irish music despite what many on the scene consider three strikes against her. In an art form long dominated by men, she's an instrumentalist with such technical poise and unbridled energy that her concerts are thrill-inducing affairs.

The phrase "alternative punk" might sound like an oxymoron -- unless you're talking about Flogging Molly. The long-running L.A. band barnstorms through its shows, but not with your standard-issue punk artillery: electric guitars factory equipped with just two chords, a bass cranked to 11 and drums that use a machine-gun volley as a metronome.

It doesn't seem like much of a formula for success: form a band, get a regular gig before a mostly young crowd and then spend at least half the evening playing songs that are hundreds of years old and tell of bloody war, lost love, bitter conflict, revolution, poverty and mystical legend.

For the Cassidys, music has been a family business from the very beginning. "One of my brothers has said that our earliest experience was hearing an O'Carolan concerto in the (crib)," Feargus Cassidy said by phone from Philadelphia. Feargus is one of six Cassidy brothers--along with Odhran, Seathrun, Aongus, Ciaran and Siontan--who are performing together on a national tour that includes a stop today at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa.

Eileen Ivers' "Celtic Christmas" show Monday at Walt Disney Concert Hall advertised a full evening of Irish holiday entertainment, from traditional tunes and singalongs to carols, poetry, storytelling and step dancing. For the most part, each of those elements was present, if, in some cases, only minimally. The program by Ivers' six-piece ensemble, Immigrant Soul, included plenty of spirited jigs and reels, a pair of traditional Christmas songs and a sprinkling of original tunes.

For those whose idea of Irish music begins with "Danny Boy" and ends "When Irish Eyes are Smiling," St. Patrick's Day offers a perfect excuse to seek out its other, traditional forms: the rollicking tunes more authentic than green beer and as rich as a glass of Guinness.