Altan
Altan is the most important acoustic ensemble dedicated to the traditions of Ireland's Donegal Gaeltacht (Gaelic-speaking) region. Since the late 1980s, the band has brought that region's rich treasure-trove of Gaelic-language songs and Scottish-inflected dances and instrumental styles to audiences around the world.
The Altan saga began when an 18-year-old Belfast native named Frankie Kennedy (1955–'94) took a summer excursion to the Donegal Gaeltacht and there met a pretty 15-year-old fiddle player and singer named Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh. They were instantly drawn to one other and corresponded regularly after Kennedy went back home. As his young lady had been born and grown up among Irish-speakers, and furthermore was from a noted musical family—her father, Proinsias Ó Mhaonaigh, was a revered fiddle teacher and song collector and much of his repertoire was gleaned from his mother, Roise—it seemed like it might be a good idea to learn to play an instrument. Kennedy began with the tin whistle and was later also driven to master the flute, eventually becoming a technically flawless and highly innovative player. His persistence paid off; the couple were married in 1981 and soon made a name for themselves as a coming musical partnership. They sat in on another artist's album for their recording debut and then assembled a short-lived band called Ragairne, the membership of which included Ní Mhaonaigh's brother Gearoid on guitar, bouzouki player Ciaran Curran and, on synthesizer, Eithne Ní Bhraonáin, a girl from another important Donegal music family who is now known far and wide as Enya. Kennedy and Ní Mhaonaigh released a recording of their own called Ceol Aduaigh (1983) but still earned their living by teaching national school in Northern County Dublin.
But by mid-decade, inspired by the example of pioneering acts like Planxty, the Bothy Band and De Dannan and having weathered innumerable live performances at clubs and festivals throughout Ireland and the United States, Kennedy and Ní Mhaonaigh realized beyond a doubt that there was a ready market for the kind of authentic-to-the-bone yet impassioned synthesis they had worked out between them. They took the plunge and quit their day jobs and their group, now officially dubbed Altan (after a seemingly bottomless lake behind Errigal Mountain in Donegal) released four albums between 1987 and 1991, with the legendary singer-songwriter Dónal Lunny sitting in as producer or guest musician. Altan was widely hailed in the international press as one of the greatest folk-based bands to ever emerge from Ireland and it seemed that the world was their oyster. Then, in 1992, disaster struck when Frankie Kennedy was diagnosed with cancer. He gamely stayed with the band, touring and recording, until his health no longer permitted it. His tragic death in 1994 at age 38 knocked the surviving band members for a loop, but in keeping with Kennedy's wishes, they soldiered on.
These days, the band consists of Ní Mhaonaigh, whose glorious soprano and fiddling are still the linchpin of the ensemble, Fermanagh-born Curran, Daithi Sproule on guitar plus two other Donegal natives, Ciaran Tourish on fiddle and Dermot Byrne on accordion. Despite forays into other genres—Altan has recorded with Dolly Parton, Allison Kraus, Jerry Douglas and Mary Chapin Carpenter—the band's Irish heritage remains its guide and solace. More than a dozen albums on, Altan's recorded output is remarkably varied and other than a couple of major-label-inspired experiments with the seductive evils of overproduction, almost consistently splendid. Horse With Heart (1989), which was produced by the great Scottish musician, composer, arranger and Silly Wizard alum Phil Cunningham, is still one of the group's best efforts and a perfect introduction to Altan's patented combination of driving dance sets and haunting, piercingly tender ballads. The First Ten Years: 1986-1995 and The Best of Altan (1997) are two well-picked career retrospectives. —Christiana Roden