County Down, Ireland

- Every journey begins with one step -

So the journey begins, at the beginning obviously.  And What better day to start a tour of Ireland than on St. Patrick's Day.  Imagine you are packing your bags and step into a camper van, such as this one I used to own many years ago,

 to travel the world to discover its music in all its variety.  Some countries, countries that I know well, we will linger to explore regional differences, other countries that I don't know so well, we'll make briefer visits to.  

I shall be making this virtual journey from the comfort of my armchair.  Music is the one of the few things that cheers me up in this world where we disrespect the planet by trashing it and disrespect each other for being different.  Music can be a unifying force in this.  The music I choose will be purely my personal choice and include some obvious choices as well as more obscure ones.  They will not always be pure traditional tunes and songs, but I want them to speak of a place to me.  So if you have any suggestions of music from places along my route that I should listen to and include, feel free to comment below.  You can follow my route here.

We begin our journey In Ireland, or more precisely in Portaferry, County Down, Northern Ireland, where I currently reside.  

Irish music doesn't need much of an introduction, as it is part of the brand Ireland alongside Guinness, the shamrock and St. Patrick's Day.  Music is played in the pubs, dance tunes, stories of resistance, emigration, drinking, life and death.  All for a bit of craíc.  Many songs are sung in English, but songs in the old Irish language are also popular.

We start with just such a pub session that I recorded on St. Patrick's Day a couple of years ago in the Portaferry Hotel.  They are just a few of our very talented local musicians getting together for a pint or 3 and enjoying playing a few tunes.  Excuse the poor sound quality at times.

There is a song about the town of Portaferry too.  The best recording I could find is by songwriter Gareth Davies-Jones, who is originally from County Down, but lives in Newcastle-upon-Tyne these days.  It's on his 2011 album Chasing Light.  Ironically the gist of the song is, why would you want to travel if you live in such a beautiful place as Portaferry.

From Portaferry we could be taking the short ferry trip to the mainland , but instead we'll head up the Ards Peninsula to see if it is really 6 miles from Bangor to Donaghadee...  This is performed by Ottilie Patterson from nearby Comber in Co. Down.  She was actually more famous as a blues singer with the Chris Barber Jazz Band.  This is from the album St.Patricks Day - Irish Sing-a-Long.

Finally, we can't leave County Down without a version of her most famous song.  So we are heading to Banbridge town in the County Down, where the legendary Star of the County Down comes from.  This version is by Van Morrison and the Chieftains.  Whilst the Chieftains are not from the County Down, Van Morrison was born in East Belfast and, as the County border runs through Belfast along the river Lagan, I claim him a County Down Boy.  This song is also on the album Irish Heartbeat

Next stop will be County Armagh.  See you there!

HAPPY PADDY'S DAY EVERYONE