About Andy Irvine

From the 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 -- 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)

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 Andy:

Welcome to my website! It's been running now since early 2001. I’d been meaning to put this on the Internet for a couple of years, ever since I'd noticed that somebody else had put up a site called ‘‘Andy Irvine’s web page,’’ where my surname was spelt in about three different ways! I hope nobody was fooled into thinking it really was my web page!

Anyway, as you can see, I’m writing this myself in the first person singular. If you continue, you will find a longish autobiography in nine chapters. This is also written by me.

I could have gone down the well worn path of having somebody write a eulogy but I’m not really into the highways of Music Business hype. So…you may think this ‘’homely’’.

Well it is but hopefully it makes a refreshing change from the usual Publicity Bureau type approach.

-Andy

(But... If you ARE looking for promotional bio and online press kit, go to the Booking page.)

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

My 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, 38s on the third, 26s on 2nd and unwound 16s 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!

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