THE LIGHTS DIM, THE AUDIENCE STILLS, and the five members of Claddagh appear on the stage. There is enthusiastic applause for these guys who, like the members of some vintage rock band, are hardly youngsters; yet when they begin playing their energy is something akin to a tidal wave. It keeps coming at you, keeps building, and soon you find yourself clapping your hands and singing the choruses, swept up for two hours or so in a sea of Irish and folk music. For over ten years this kind of energy has been pouring out of CLADDAGH'S instruments and voices, with no signs of stopping any time soon. Yet the question always being asked was "when are you gonna do an album?". How does one capture that kind of energy? 

CLADDAGH first went before an audience in November of 1987 as a four person group, a year later paring down to the three man 'core' of the group: Dan Ryan, whose guitar and musical experience are the 'engine' that drives their sound, Thom Nolan on lead vocals and rhythm (including the Irish bodhran drum), and George Reese, on tin whistles, mandolin, and harmonica. Two years later they invited Stan Smith and his banjo and fiddle and guitar (what doesn't Stan play?) to join them for an evening which has, thankfully, lasted over nine years. Jim Greene, who performed as a duo with Dan 25 years earlier, joined the group in 1995 adding a bass guitar to fill in the bottom end of their sound as well as adding a trained tenor voice. The band was complete. Their first cassette album 'I'll Tell Me Ma' featured many of their favorite songs, but folks wanted more so they set their sights on doing a second album in compact disc form. The results of that recording are now in your CD player. 

‘The Irish Rover' is a song about the most incredible ship ever to sail the seven seas, and an unabashed exercise in good old-fashioned blarney. Good theme for an album by a band like CLADDAGH, don't you think?