About Michael & Aoife

I was born into a family with with a traditional Irish musical heritage. As a child I was exposed to music sessions within my aunt's and uncle's family homes, a house full of music records and tapes, and the ones that didn't play could lilt tunes or sing. I thought I had discovered all the instruments involved in Irish music, fiddle, accordian, flute, banjo etc, until one day in my grandparents house in the west of Ireland, I heard an instrument playing the music I knew, that had a unique, haunting, beautiful sound, that I had never heard before. I asked my grandfather; "what was that being played?", and he said they were Irish bagpipes, known as Uilleann Pipes. I was hooked on that sound, but the instrument was so rare in those days, that I never got to see a set of pipes being played until I was a teenager. I had learned my music on mandolin and banjo at that stage, but eventually got a set of pipes when I started working.

My career in life was in the military, and within that organisation, I traveled extensively with other musicians around Europe and the middle east on occasions, I also play regularly within the Galway trad music scene, and my daughter Aoife has now carried on the tradition into the next generation. She is an accomplished fiddle / flute player, who also plays regularly in the Galaxy trad sessions, and she also has a music degree from the University of Limerick. Aoife has tutored at Irish music festivals in France and at home.