There’s an old joke that goes, “What’s the best way to play a bodhrán? With a penknife.” The slag is reputed to have come from the piper Séamus Ennis – infuriated by beginners buying a bodhrán at a ...

I WAS IN bed for a week recovering from the Eleanor Shanley gig at the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in Cavan. There were more than 1,500 people in the Liberty Dome, a big white tent, with a stage in the ...

When percussionist and filmmaker Ruairí Glasheen delves into the history and origins of the bodhrán in his new four-part documentary about the drum often hailed as the heartbeat of Irish music, what ...

Via The Journal Of Music: Cork University Press has recently published Beating Time: The Story of the Irish Bodhrán by Fintan Vallely, a major new study of the instrument with portraits of renowned ...