Do you know much about the music of Ireland?

Irish music is music that has been created in various genres on the island of Ireland.

The bodhrán, a traditional Irish drum.
The indigenous music of the island is termed Irish traditional music. It has remained vibrant through the 20th and into the 21st century, despite globalising cultural forces. In spite of emigration and a well-developed connection to music influences from Britain and the United States, Irish traditional music has kept many of its elements and has itself influenced many forms of music, such as country and roots music in the United States, which in turn have had some influence on modern rock music. It has occasionally been fused with rock and roll, punk rock, and other genres. Some of these fusion artists have attained mainstream success, at home and abroad.

In art music, Ireland has a history reaching back to Gregorian chants in the Middle Ages, choral and harp music of the Renaissance, court music of the Baroque and early Classical period, as well as many Romantic, late Romantic and twentieth-century modernist music. It is still a vibrant genre with many composers and ensembles writing and performing avant-garde art music in the classical tradition.

On a smaller scale, Ireland has also produced many jazz musicians of note, particularly after the 1950s.

Traditional music played a part in Irish popular music later in the century, with Clannad, Van Morrison, Hothouse Flowers and Sinéad O'Connor using traditional elements in popular songs. Enya achieved international success with New Age/Celtic fusions. The Afro-Celt Sound System achieved fame adding West African influences and electronic dance rhythms in the 1990s while bands such as Kíla fuse traditional Irish with rock and world music representing the Irish tradition at world music festivals across Europe and America. The most notable fusion band in Ireland was Horslips, who combined Irish themes and music with heavy rock. The Shamrock Wings is a Colombian band that fuses Irish music with Caribbean rhythms.

Riverdance is a musical and dancing interval act which originally starred Michael Flatley and Jean Butler and featuring the choir Anúna. It was performed during the Eurovision Song Contest 1994 as "Riverdance". Popular reaction to the act was so immense that an entire musical revue was built around the act.

The 1960s saw the emergence of major Irish rock bands and artists, such as Them, Van Morrison, Emmet Spiceland, Eire Apparent, Skid Row, Taste, Rory Gallagher, Dr. Strangely Strange, Thin Lizzy, Gary Moore, Mellow Candle.

Thin Lizzy in concert, 1981
In 1970 Dana put Ireland on the pop music map by winning the Eurovision Song Contest with her song All Kinds of Everything. She went to number one in the UK and all over Europe and paved the way for many Irish artists. Gilbert O'Sullivan went to the top of the charts on both sides of the Atlantic in 1972 with a string of hits, and the all-sister line-up of The Nolans gained international chart success in the late 1970s. Chris de Burgh achieved international acclaim with his 1986 hit "Lady in Red".

Some groups who formed during the emergence of Punk rock in the mid-late 1970s included U2, Virgin Prunes, The Boomtown Rats, The Undertones, Aslan, Gavin Friday, and Stiff Little Fingers. Later in the 80s and into the 90s, Irish punk fractured into new styles of alternative rock, which included That Petrol Emotion, In Tua Nua, Fatima Mansions, My Bloody Valentine and Ash. In the 1990s, pop bands like The Corrs, B*Witched, Boyzone, Westlife and The Cranberries emerged. In the same decade, Ireland also contributed a subgenre of folk metal known as Celtic metal with exponents of the genre including Cruachan, Primordial, Geasa, and Waylander. Bands like Moxie lead the wave of Neo-Irish music in the new millennium with fluidity, cross-pollination, and innovation.

In recent decades Irish music in many different genres has been very successful internationally; however, the most successful genres have been rock, popular and traditional fusion, with performers such as (in alphabetical order): Altan, The Answer, Ash, Aslan, Axis Of, B*Witched, Bell X1, Frances Black, Mary Black, The Blizzards, The Bothy Band, Brendan Bowyer, Boyzone, Paul Brady, Chris de Burgh, Paddy Casey, The Cast of Cheers, Celtic Thunder, Celtic Woman, The Chieftains, The Clancy Brothers, Clannad, Codes, Curious Grace and Black Rabbit, Rita Connolly, The Coronas, The Corrs, Phil Coulter, Nadine Coyle (of Girls Aloud), The Cranberries, Peter Cunnah (of D:Ream), Dana, De Dannan, Cathy Davey, Damien Dempsey, The Divine Comedy, Joe Dolan, Val Doonican, Ronnie Drew, The Dubliners, Mary Duff, Duke Special, EDEN, Enya, Julie Feeney, Fight Like Apes, Mick Flannery, The Frames, Bridie Gallagher, Rory Gallagher, Lisa Hannigan, Glen Hansard of The Frames, Keith Harkin, Gemma Hayes, The High Kings, Niall Horan (of One Direction), Horslips, The Hothouse Flowers, Hozier, In Tua Nua, Andy Irvine, Laura Izibor, Gavin James, Jape, Jerry Fish & The Mudbug Club, Siva Kaneswaran (of The Wanted), Dolores Keane, Luke Kelly, Dermot Kennedy, Keywest, Kíla, James Kilbane, Kodaline, Jack L, Johnny Logan, Dónal Lunny, Phil Lynott and Thin Lizzy, Tommy Makem, Imelda May, Eleanor McEvoy, Christy Moore, Gary Moore, Van Morrison, Moving Hearts, Samantha Mumba, Mundy, Róisín Murphy, Ruby Murray, My Bloody Valentine, Declan Nerney, Maura O'Connell, Sinéad O'Connor, Daniel O'Donnell, Annmarie O'Riordan, Declan O'Rourke, Gilbert O'Sullivan, Picturehouse, Picture This, Pillow Queens, Planxty, Carmel Quinn, Republic of Loose, Damien Rice, The Riptide Movement, Dickie Rock, Derek Ryan, RUN iN RED, The Saw Doctors, The Script, Sharon Shannon, Pa Sheehy (of Walking on Cars), Snow Patrol, Something Happens, Davy Spillane, Stiff Little Fingers, Stockton's Wing, The Strypes, Yasha Swag, Tebi Rex, Therapy?, The Thrills, The Undertones, Walking on Cars, The Wolfe Tones, Time Is A Thief, Two Door Cinema Club, U2, VerseChorusVerse, Villagers, Westlife, Bill Whelan, Finbar Wright, achieving success nationally and internationally.