About Andy Irvine

ANDY IRVINE is one of the great Irish singers, his voice one of a handful of truly great ones that gets to the very soul of Ireland. He has been hailed as "a tradition in himself".
Musician, singer, songwriter, Andy has maintained his highly individual performing skills throughout his 45 year career.

From Sweeney's Men in the mid 60s, to the enormous success of Planxty in the 70s and then from Patrick Street to Andy Irvine & Dónal Lunny's Mozaik, Andy has been a world music pioneer and an icon for traditional music and musicians.

As a soloist, Andy fills the role of the archetypal troubadour with a show and a travelling lifestyle that reflect his lifelong influence, Woody Guthrie.
To quote the Irish Times, "Often copied, never equalled", his repertoire consists of Irish traditional songs, dexterous Balkan dances and a compelling cannon of his own self-penned songs.

Andy's History :

Chapter 1: 21 Years A-growin
Chapter 2: Dublin in the Early 1960s
Chapter 3: Sweeney's Men
Chapter 4: The Balkans to Planxty
Chapter 5: End of Planxty, De Dannan, Paul Brady, Mick Hanly
Chapter 6: Planxty Reforms
Chapter 7: Planxty Postscript; Mosaic
Chapter 8: Birth of Patrick Street, Solo Tours
Chapter 9: East Wind, Australia to Present Day

Andy's Instruments :

My instruments have been made for some years, by Stefan Sobell in Northumberland in the North of England. I wanted a rounder, warmer sound and we came to the conclusion that a bigger body was the answer. Rather than have a very large tear drop shaped body, I opted for the guitar shape which is easier to hold. A pity in a way because people who do not know me think I'm playing a guitar.

Stefan also made me a mandolin / mandola. Never quite know what to call it. Its two frets longer than a mandolin. I used to play a Gibson mandola which had the same string length as Stefans. Classicly, a mandola should be tuned way down to CGDA but I always thought this stupid with a Gibson because it didn't have a big enough body, nor a long enough string length to cope with the hawser-like strings required. So I thought it logical--as it was two frets longer than a mandolin-- to tune it a tone lower, using mandolin strings. So I tune it FCGC (I nearly always have the top string tuned down a tone).

When baggage allowances permit, I also play a bass bouzouki, made for me by Davy Stuart in Christchurch, New Zealand. This is a large bodied bouzouki-shaped bouzouki with heavy strings. At present I have .056s on the 4th, 42s on the 3rd, 32s on 2nd and unwound 18s on the top. I have been tuning it DAEA - a 4th down from the usual Irish bouzouki tuning of GDAD but recently found that it would go down to CGDG - a 5th lower. It sounds grrreat!

Another recent addition to my instrument armoury is a lovely mandola made for me by Bob Abrams of Trillium Instruments in New Hampshire, USA.

I get my harmonicas specially put together from Hohner parts by Antony Dannecker of Lincolnshire, UK. Currently I am using, mostly, his Cross Harp MS Custom harmonicas.
I also have a few old favourites like the Suzuki Pro Master 350V harmonica in G.

Lastly, I have recently changed the pick ups on my Sobell bouzouki and my Sobell and Trillium mandolas. I now use K&K pick ups in these three instruments. K&K pick ups give a much more acoustic sound than the Sunrise pick ups I used previously. I still use the Sunrise in my bass bouzouki though. It gives it a really great "bottom". -Andy writes in August 2010-

Andy's journal :
November 2007
April - May 2005 -
December 2003 - Travel diary - Andy in Australia
November 2003 - Travel diary of Andy and Rens' trip to South America
March 2002 - Notes from a scrubby hotel: Mozaik in Australia

From the archives :
November 2009 Dónal Lunny's interview
   The Irish Times interview with Dónal Lunny about Mozaik tour

June 2008   ZoukFest follow-up
   Interview with Roger Landes, director of ZoukFest
   Blog entries from Chris Smith, a ZoukFest participant

January 2008   Classic Album Concert : Andy Irvine and Paul Brady
   Photos, review and set list from Celtic Connections

February 2004 Planxty re-union concert at Vicar Street, Dublin
   Photos by Paul O'Grady and by Kate Akers

Audio archives :
Video segment (8 MB) -- Planxty performing "Yarmouth Town" from a late 1970s BBC broadcast (thanks to Anselm Gaynor!)
Audio (MP3 1.2MB) -- Andy performs "Arthur McBride" with bouzouki and harmonica -- pulled from a video of a PBS broadcast
Audio (MP3 1.6MB) -- Andy performs Nancy's Whiskey with hurdy gurdy and harmonica (same PBS broadcast)

Want to contact Andy directly? You can use this form to send a note straight to him.