Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 and an Irish song tradition inspired Paul McCartney on The Beatles‘ “I Saw Her Standing There.” Paul used many of his literary and musical favorites in his songs. In The Lyrics ...

"Skibbereen" is a haunting and melancholic Irish ballad that tells the story of the Great Famine that occurred in Ireland in the mid-19th century. The song is named after the town of Skibbereen, ...

We'll leave the debates over why the Irish are such champions of the written word — Is it the island's strong oral traditions surrounding the seanchai, or storyteller? The rich vein of Celtic folklore ...

This month, we're highlighting some of our favorite stories from 2023, including this interview about a song with a beautiful history behind it. ROSE BETTS: I'm Rose Betts. I'm a singer-songwriter.

Have you ever listened to a beautiful Irish traditional love song and wondered about the song’s romantic protagonists? The origin of the words of “The Coolun” (“An Cúilfhionn”), often described as one ...

Some songs don't have any more to them than a good beat you can dance to, and that's fine by me. Other songs have a good beat and layers of stories behind them. ROSE BETTS: I'm Rose Betts. I'm a ...