The Writer's Room: The Grass Is Greener . . . Ireland’s Influence On America’s Music

Have another helping of Irish stew or corned beef and cabbage. Wash it down with a pint of Guinness, green food coloring optional.

Then continue your Saint Patrick’s Day celebration by listening to traditional Irish tunes.More than a few should sound familiar to Bluegrass fans.

When it comes to influences on American music, the Grass literally is greener because of contributions from the Emerald Isle.

First came the fiddle, easier than most instruments to take on board ship and down the Great Wagon Road into the Appalachian backcountry. Many pioneers of the 1700s were Protestant Scots-Irish, a few generations distant from the Lowland Scots who’d been relocated to Northern Ireland’s Ulster Plantation.

Fiercely independent and ready for a better life, they booked passage to the American colonies. Most landed in Pennsylvania and some settled there. Others trekked to Virginia and the Carolinas, then on to what’s now Kentucky and Tennessee. Fiddles provided the soundtrack for settlement. Family gatherings and barn dances echoed with reels, jigs and other lively melodies brought across the sea.

A Musical Inheritance 

Some fiddle tunes were updated for the new land. The Irish tune “The Beggarman” became “Red Haired Boy,” while “Lord MacDonald’s Reel” is more widely known here as “Leather Britches.” And in a burst of patriotic pride (or prototype political jingle), “The Gobby-O” became “Jefferson and Liberty.”

Ballads also were part of a musical inheritance that continued to expand. The potato famine of the 1840s brought new waves of Irish families to America. Protestant or Catholic, their songs focused on everyday life—love true or lost, memories of family and home, tales of strong drink and shenanigans, and the hope of Heaven—themes still heard in Bluegrass and traditional Country music.

In 1998, Irish and American musicians recorded “Long Journey Home,” an album celebrating musical ties between the two lands. The album shares a title with a Monroe Brothers song, but this title track is a co-write by Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains and Elvis Costello (whose given name is Declan Patrick MacManus).

Their lines include this bittersweet reminder for all leave home in search of a new opportunities: “But as you ascend the ladder/Look out below where you tread/For the colours bled as they overflowed/Red, white and blue . . . green, white and gold.”

On the same album, Vince Gill recorded a mashup of the Irish outlaw ballad “Bard ofArmagh” and its American offspring called “Streets of Laredo.” To the same tune, he sang three verses of each song.

In contrast to the Texas cowboy’s lament, “The Bard” has a happier ending: “How I love to muse on the days of my boyhood/Though four score and three years have flitted since then/ Still it gives sweet reflection, as every first joy should/For free-hearted boys make the best of old men.”

Hillbilly Irish and “Showing Roots”

 In his popular “Hillbilly Irish” album, singer/songwriter Marty Falle offers another look at the Irish legacy in America. Jim Capaldi, reviewing in 2025 for Country Music News International Magazine, calls the title track “not just a nod to heritage—it’s a rousing celebration of the Scots-Irish blood that pulses through Appalachian culture.”

The reviewer says that “the song bridges continents, connecting the stone-walled pubs of Ulster with the tobacco barns of Eastern Kentucky. (Carley) Greer’s voice pairs

beautifully with Falle’s, both seasoned and stirring, as they sing of faith, migration, and hard-earned freedom.”

The latest collaboration between Irish and American singer/songwriters happened thisJanuary in Belfast, Northern Ireland. A five-day event billed as “Your Roots Are Showing” featured workshops, panels and showcase performances that attracted more than 1,000 people and gained international news coverage.

Chris Barilla, staff editor of People magazine, said the gathering “crossed border and genre lines to provide a truly unique conference experience, earmarked by the most important aspect of it all:  the music.”

The opening “Folk iN Fusion” concert featured several artists familiar to American audiences, including Amy Grant, Jim Lauderdale, Rissi Palmer, and Wyatt Ellis. One of the highlights was a performance by Ellis, the 2024 IBMA Momentum Instrumentalist of the Year, and veteran Irish musician Gerry O’Connor.

SPGBMA Refused To Be Snowed Under

This year, the “P” in SPBGMA might have stood for “Perseverance.” The Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America declared its annual meeting would go on despite the January storm that disrupted travel to and around Nashville.

Folks who made it up the hill to the Music City Sheraton enjoyed the performances, workshops, awards show and jam sessions that have made this weekend special for more than 50 years.

Thanks to SPBGMA and volunteer panelists for continuing to offer the Songwriters Showcase session. This year, Daryl Mosely, Kristen Bearfield and Thomm Jutz performed some of their award-winning songs and give insights on writing.

At the awards show, Rick Faris was named Songwriter of the Year. Other talented writers nominated in this category were Rick Lang, Edgar Loudermilk, Daryl Mosley, Seth Mulder, and Donna Ulisse.

You’ve probably seen photos of the event’s final day, when Daryl Mosley, The King James Boys and other artists performed despite an electrical outage at the hotel. Songwriter Rick Lang commented that, “Even when the power went out on Sunday, everyone carried on and didn't miss a beat.” 

After all, the music SPBGMA is preserving is acoustic music. I can only imagine the electric-withdrawal frenzy that could be triggered if the power went out at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.