Altan

Best known for their Scot-tinged Donegal traditional music with roots back to the early 1970's, Dublin based Altan produce music drawing "liberallly and liberatingly from the traditions of Donegal and other Ulster counties. They played not only jigs, reels, and hornpipes-all familiar dance tunes-but also the more esoteric Germans (barndances performed at roughly the tempo of hornpipes), strathspeys (Scot tunes typified by a distinct dotted rhythm and succeeding triplets), mazurkas (comparable to waltzes, but with a stress on the second beat), and highlands (moderately paced tunes adapted from and slightly faster than Scots strathspeys) peculiar mainly to Donegal..."

           -From the inside cover, The Best of Altan

Members of Altan

Proinsias (Francis) Ó Maonaigh

Frankie Kennedy (Belfast) & Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh Kennedy

Gearoid Ó Maonaigh (brother of Mairéad)

Ciarán Curran (Fermanagh)

Paul O'Shaughnessy (Dublin fiddler upto 1992)

Seamus (James) Quinn (Fermanagh)

Ciarán Tourish (Buncrana fiddler)

Dáithi Sproule (Derry born; St. Paul, MN res.)

Dermot Byrne (Buncrana accordionist)

9. King of the Pipers: Altan's traditional arrangement of this 5 part tune was first heard during Ciarán Curran's visit to the house of the late Mickey and France Byrne, of Kilcar, County Donegal.