Counties Wexford and Waterford

In the southeastern corner of Ireland lies County Wexford with some sweeping sandy beaches.  So let's Sleep Out on The Beach with Wexford born Declan Sinnott, who has been playing with many big names around the Irish scene and is still touring with Christy Moore.  This is from his solo album Window on the World. 

Moving swiftly onto County Waterford.  The members of traditional Irish band Danú (named after an Irish goddess) met in Waterford town in 1994 and have been churning out lively tunes ever since.  Here are a couple of tunes The PowerOut and the Dublin Reel by their flute player, Tom Doorley from their 2005 album Up in The Air:

Here's a song by them about my home county Down, that won them the BBC Folk musician of the year award in 2004 from their album The Road Less Travelled:

Robbie O'Connell of Waterford is a nephew of the Clancy Brothers.  Here is the song Flower of Kilkenny, which can be found of the compilation album Rough Guide to Irish Folk:

See you next time in Tipperary and County Cork.  As usual you can follow my virtual route on here.

Counties Laois and Kilkenny

County Laois is another of those counties where not much seems to be happening and I've been having trouble finding any recording musicians from the county.  So here just one song about County Laois by Galway born Dolores Keane, where she describes the (presumably grey) skies of Ballyroan from her 1999 album Night Owl:

So moving swiftly onto County Kilkenny, a county made famous internationally by the beer of the same name made by Guinness, although it's essentially just a slightly watered down version of what the Irish know as Smithwicks.  Here we meet the Kilkennys, who describe themselves as a contemporary Irish folk band.  They have been touring as a group since 1998, but only adopted the name The Kilkennys in 2008.  In fact there is a County Lais connection too, as guitarist Robbie Campion originates from there. Given the fact they are from Kilkenny, they have an odd lack of Kilkenny songs in their repertoire.  Here is an instrumental called the Badger Sett from their 2016 album The Colour of Freedom:

Also originally from County Kilkenny is JCB man Seamus Moore, whom we already got aquainted with in County Armagh.  He doesn't really sing about his home county either so this number talks about Kerry and the moon.  Fluthered on the Moon is from the album of the same name.

That's it for today.  As usual you can follow my virtual journey here.  Next stop is County Wexford