Mark Pentleton

I’m not sure how well this song is known. It is from the 1992 Chris de Burgh album The Power of Ten and I’ve always liked it – probably something to do with listening to it while I was living in France in 1992. The Connemara connection was strengthened by Sardou’s Les Lacs du Connemara [...]

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I’ve been thinking about all things Irish the past few days because I’ve been working in Dublin since Sunday on the “Digital Boot Camp” where I’ve been training 75 teachers from all over Ireland in podcasting, film-making, photo editing, etc. I recorded today’s song at the weekend and I think at the time I read [...]

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This song was originally released in 1995 by The Corrs and didn’t do particularly well in the charts, other than in Ireland and Australia. A remixed version by Tin Tin Out was released in 1999 and was only kept off the #1 spot in the UK by Britney Spears and her début single Baby One [...]

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Today’s song is another of the Irish tunes I played the other night in Cheltenham. It’s sometimes  known as Our Wedding Day. This is a beautiful song and I’ve decided to do something a bit different today – I’ve combined the piano sounds of my Roland RD-700GX with some of the on-board synth pads to [...]

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After the karaoke evening at the Apple Teacher Institute we ended up back in the halls with the Irish contingent and I was playing the piano for a couple of hours. I was reminded of all the Irish tunes I used to play, one of which was Carrickfergus. I’ve recorded this today and hope you [...]

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Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh! Here’s the traditional Irish song Danny Boy / The Derry Air to wish you all a very happy St Patrick’s day!
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This song was written by Rolf Løvland and Brendan Graham and was originally included on the 2002 Secret Garden album Once in a Red Moon. Since then it has been covered by many famous artists including Josh Groban and Westlife who recently sang it at the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize concert celebrating Barack Obama’s win. [...]

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Today’s song is a bit different: Lift the wings is from the full stage version of Riverdance, first performed at Dublin’s Point Theatre in 1995, following the successful Riverdance interval act at the previous year’s Eurovision Song Contest. As a song, Lift the wings is not particularly well-known, but I’ve always really liked it and [...]

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