Songs and tunes for Saint Patrick’s Day +2

No sooner, metaphorically, was the ink dry on my Salut! Folk playlist for Saint Patrick’s Day 2026 than the dissent began, writes Colin Randall

And no one else is to blame. After all, I invited responses, asking people to name artists I should have included but didn’t.

Dolores Keane by Tony 1212. Listen to Diglake Fields, link below, and you’ll know she was a great singer. RIP

Subscribers to the UK and Irish Folk and Acoustic 60s/80s Facebook group were quick to respond.

For John Egan, there simply “has to be some Paul Brady”. Brian Carroll was in disbelief at the absence of Luke Kelly – “one of our most revered of singers” – and he had even gone through my list twice to make sure he was not mistaken. Mary O’Malley liked my choices but thought De Dannan, Stockton’s Wing and Maura O’Connell should also have been among them.

Dave Binns said a list of his own would have to have Planxty, Oisin, Sean Garvey and Martin Hayes. Dominic Lucas mentioned the Bothy Band.

John Patton raised an eyebrow at the inclusion of the thoroughly Yorkshire lass Kate Rusby until Maggie MacBean and I pointed out that for the chosen track, As I Roved Out, Rusby joined Dervish on stage and shared the vocals with the band’s superb singer Cathy Jordan. Being the wife of Coleraine-born Damien O’Kane may also have given her stronger grounds for inclusion in my list than Tony Cascarino had for a place in the Irish national football side

For all that, I readily accept that each of the missing nominees deserved to be chosen. It would have taken at least one box set to add tracks by everyone I left out. I have written extensively about many of them, and oyjees for whom no room was found

Consider this list, which is nowhere near exhaustive: Danu, the Johnstons, Sharon Shannon, Altan, the Clancy Brothers, the Fureys and Davey Arthur, Dubliners, Seamus Begley and Steve Coogan, Mary Coughlan, Damien Dempsey, Oisin Leech, the Pogues, Arcady, Niamh Parsons, Four Men and a Dog, Glen Hansard, Sean O Rioda ….. the list goes on and on.

There’ll be no Salut! Folk box sets but here are a few tracks that might appear on a follow-up compilation. Most tastes in Irish music catered for ?