The uilleann piper Patsy Touhey was the most celebrated Irish traditional musician of his day. Born in 1865, he flourished in the USA as a professional entertainer and became a prime mover of the Gaelic music revival in the States. Today his music is a byword for unsurpassed virtuosity.

His crucial importance to the history of Irish traditional music is that he is the earliest traditional musician of whom we have a substantial body of sound recordings, giving us a unique insight into the incredibly rich world of traditional music making in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The largest single collection of recordings of Touhey’s music is the Busby-Carney collection, which is now held at the Irish Traditional Music Archive. This collection contains private cylinder recordings made by Touhey himself and often featuring spoken introductions by him. A remastered selection from the collection is given here.

Patsy Touhey c.1913