The soundtrack to the BBC series of the same name, originally released as triple vinyl but now (I think, still) available on a double CD.

a good mix (to my quarter-Irish ears) of traditional Irish bands and other (mostly American) artists performing other material with strong Celtic influences.

The Chieftains with a bunch of guests, many of whom are country singers - thus reinforcing the migration of people, music and ideas from the Emerald Isle across the Atlantic. You might add a copy of "Thousands are sailing" by the Pogues onto a playlist, just for good measure.

'If this is Rock and Roll' and 'all the way from Tuam' are both heavily influenced by that neck of the woods. ITIR&R features N17, about the road from Galway to Sligo (and which emigrants leaving Tuam, Co Galway would have used to get to Shannon Airport) whilst ATWFT has the wonderful 'Clare Island'. Lots of other songs on the albums namecheck wee places you might or not pass through.

Both albums are genuinely great stuff; i went to school in Tuam around the time that the Saw Doctors were starting to make it big(-ish!) and even still, this many years on, i get a wee wave of nostalgia when i hear anything from them.

Has to be Van the Man - why not with the Chieftains on "Irish Heartbeat"?... and maybe some Waterboys?

Anyway, good job the car has a CD player cuz the tape's going to self-destruct in 5 seconds........

Have a Guinness (or three) for me!

You mention some of the obvious suspects, tho' I can't believe a trip to Spiddal (if that is the same as Spideal) could possibly not include the trio of Fishermans Blues, Room to Roam and Too Close to Heaven, by the Waterboys, even if the chief 'boy is a scot.) All made in or near Spiddal. So from there a quick leap into Sharon Shannon, ex Waterboy, um, girl, herself. If jollity is your game, follow the road to Tuam, home of the Saw Doctors, another loose W'boy connection, with Anto Thistlewaite siding with them after ceasing to be a W'boy.
Further north is Paul Brady territory, any of his best of's would be a good start, but only that as you will be drawn in. Some ladies worth a punt would be the 3 golden voiced colleens, Dolores Keane, Mary Coughlan and, with a new CD just out, Eleanor McEvoy.
Traditional music is endless, with Altan holding the sceptre, I feel, but Lunasa and Solas hold up well. And of course, the elder statesmen of Planxty and the Bothy Band. De Dannan are good in parts. Moving Hearts first is fabulous, the rest less so.
Some ethereal piping, some of Davy Spillane holds up well, I like Atlantic Bridge and whilst we're skirting into new agey stuff, Clannad are a whole lot better than erstwhile member. thereof, Enya.
I am sure I have missed out loads, as I write remembering andy White, Ron kavana and, how could I forget, Sean-nos Nua, Sinead O'Connors marvellous traditional take. And I hope your Chieftains includes Celtic Heartbeat with Van.
Final suggestion: Bringing it all back home, the dble CD soundtrack from the TV series, with as good a panoply of irish and irish related and derived music as you can find.
Slainte!

Memories of art college back in the distant early 80's come flooding back - skinny jeans & red Kickers and smoking OPs (i.e. other peoples') cuz I was skint.

The first album is all I ever heard & I've never got around to getting it on CD.. still that's true of about 400 other albums!

Great pipes, if I remember..

... Steve's Last Ramble & Galway Girl (from Trancendental Blues).

Blinding tunes wrote while Mr. Earle lived in Galway (recorded with Sharon Shannon).

If you make it up to Westport, Co. Mayo, you'll have to visit Matt Molloys pub. He was in the Chieftans, and seriously, the Guinness is awfully good there.

Down the road from there is a wee village called Mulranny where the Dad was from and which forms my only 'brush with rock'n'roll' story which i might as well regale here

It's 1978, I'm 4 and my dad was, er, 55 - lets just say that Popular culture and, well, The Beatles have passed him by. We saunter on up to the Hotel there for a stroll - or rather i was on his shoulders when we notice a huge crowd on the front lawn. Using nothing more than brass neck, the Dad (with infant on his shoulders) jostles his way to the front where i recall a load of cameras and the like and, lo, a helicopter lands. I don't remember that much, save that a bloke with a hat and glasses gets out along with this smaller bird in tow.

He makes a run towards the hotel, coming straight towards us. He sorta bangs into the Dad and almost sends me flying off Dads shoulders. He stops. Turns. Helps me back up and says 'Sorry mate'

Yoko said fuck all, obv...

I'm beginning to realise this blog is seriously bad for my future finances.... my CD hitlist is growing by the second!!!

For the more chilled-out moments I recommend "Moonchild" by Celtus. I bought it after hearing several tracks on Bob Harris' Saturday night show. Probably one of my favourite albums from the 1990s, but is done an injustice by the cover of the re-release.

Do yourself a nice compilation of the Pogues, lovely stuff.

London, can you.
OK, OK, so Phillip Chevron was a Radiator from Space and Terry Woods was Gay and Terry Woods etc etc.......

Fair point Retro but The Pogues were a band that opened my ears to a whole host of folk music which maybe I wouldn't have listened to otherwise. I think their "non-Irishness" along with the forementioned Steve Earle and The Waterboys shouldn't exclude them from being played whilst holidaying in the Emerald Isle. Their obvious love of the music of that country makes those artists perfect car music IMHO.

Didn't know that Terry Woods was gay? ;)

Funnily enough, Phil Chevron is.

Another vote for Altan, particularly their earlier albums, before they signed to Virgin.

Other groups not yet mentioned:
Dervish, I particularly like 'At the end of the day'. I remember seeing them looking very bleary-eyed at a lunchtime concert at Sidmouth - I don't think they knew that you could get up before 3 pm.

Patrick Street with Andy Irvine and others.

Four Men and A Dog, which I love. Double fiddle attack with banjo and bodhran and great rhythm guitar (Arty McGlynn on their first album). My favourite is 'Dr A's Secret Remedies', just good fun, I love Hector the Hero and Me (irish Folk Blues!)

And nobody's mentioned Christy Moore so far, so I just have.

Finally, if you include Irish-American music, as a (bad) fiddler myself I can recommend:

Eileen Ivers, her first album is very good and traditional but then 'Wild Blue' is the Hendrix of Irish music, if you don't mind a bit fusion-ish. The opening track just makes me want to throw my violin away, I can't compete.

Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill. Just the greatest fiddle playing imaginable. He plays the jigs as if they were slow airs, he just seems to have so much time for the slides and turns - effortless. 'Lonsome Touch' is my folk Desert Island Disc, but their live in Seattle album has the amazing 27 minute track which starts with the most haunting of slow airs and they gradually build up speed as they switch from tune to tune and style to style. Great playing. But if you like your Irish music at full throttle it may not be for you.

Rory Gallagher's mandolin driven ecstatic anthem never fails. Watch yer dont spill your pint. Have a great trip.

.....for some reason but Bap Kennedy is superb!!

Lonely Street and Domestic Blues are wonderful albums in an Irish/Country/Americana style.

Planxty - The Well Below The Valley. Fantastic.

Derek Bell who played harp etc with the Chieftains made a great record as a tribute to the legendary harpist Carolan, it's on emusic and I can't recommend it enough
http://www.emusic.com/album/Derek-Bell-Carolan-s-Receipt-MP3-Download/10...
I want it to soundtrack my drive around the Dingle peninsula...

All of the above are excellent choices, or you could try something by the Afro-Celt Soundsystem, does exactly what it says on the tin. You can´t go wrong with the late Joe Dolan´s Greatest hits. Or the curious hybrid of Irish Country and Western.

Just a quick additional. The Blacks, Mary and Frances. Avoid like the plague, despite an often good choice of material and good musicianship, both remain twee twaddle.
And whilst exorcising demons, Goats Can't Shave! Now they're a load of unlistenable bollox, aren't they!? Saw them support the Oysters once and, ahead of that, bought them on a Cooking Vinyl cheapo offer. One track good enough for posterity, the rest, as they say, unlistenable claptrap.

... you should also check out Brian Houston's album "Sugar Queen". He was mentioned in the good Christian artists thread but don't hold that against him, he's genuinely good. "Sugar Queen's" a great collection of rootsy bluesy tunes in slightly Van-the-Man-if-he-wasn't-now-a-curmudgeonly-old-thing-a-wee-bit-too-content-to-phone-in-a-performance-these-days mode (and before any flaming starts I'm a Van fan from waaaaaaaay back). Great album!

PS Glad you had a great weekend. We love Ireland and being let loose there in a hire car is one of our fave fave things!

These are more Anglo-Irish than Irish-Irish though you wouldn't know. Kate Bush Hounds of Love is fantastic when driving round the country - all those big drums, big vocals and big ideas and in the Ninth Wave an extended jig sequence. She has worked with Donal Lunny and although some were a bit sniffy about her Irish I think her version of Mna Na h-Eireann is magical and on the extended version of Hounds she also does an unaccompanied version of My Lagan Love.

Sharon Shannon - big in the charts here with Mundy/Steve Earle for Galway Girl - has a track called Cavan Potholes (which is on the same Donal Lunny organised album Common Ground which has Mna Na h-Eireann). It's superb when you are in a car trying to avoid the same things.

Other names to check out are Gemma Hayes, Director and Fionn Regan - who was nominated for a Mercury last year. There also was that fantastic album from Hal a few years back which was made for sunny days driving in The West.

Guilty pleasure would be Bono being as pop as he gets on a Disclab remix of his and The Corrs (yes the Corrs) version of Ryan Adams When the Stars Go Blue. Sounds great along with other U2 tracks such as Ground Beneath Her Feet and the magical 'In a Lifetime' which Bono did with Clannad.

If you want one album out of all this, I would pick Hounds of Love. And one track - Cavan Potholes. It'll grow on you!

Just checked the dates. These choices will have to do for the next time you visit Ireland - there will be a next time won't there? One more mad choice - Kate Bush covering Sexual Healing with the added extra of uilleann pipes. Mad but it works -it was a 'b=side' or extra track with the single King of the Mountain.