"McGlynn's picking of tunes was hugely impressive, a terrific demonstration, not only of the impact this player has made to the use of guitar in traditional music, but of the unfazed consistency of his innovation." Fintan Vallely - Irish Times.

Arty McGlynn is without doubt the finest and most sought after guitar player in Ireland with a unique understanding of the music he performs. Born in Omagh, Co. Tyrone his family were steeped in traditional music but when his mother bought him his first guitar at the age of eleven, Arty began to delve into the playing of great jazz guitarists such as Wes Montgomery and Barney Kessel, and by the time he turned fifteen, he was already playing professionally.

The late sixties saw him move further a field, trips to the UK and USA, moving from band to band and adding the pedal steel guitar to his musical arsenal along the way. But by the mid seventies the endless run of one nighters had begun to lose their appeal and Arty was beginning to look for something more real, something that would excite him again. There followed a phase in his life where rather than play "what he was told to play", by whoever controlled the purse strings in the dance band, he began to have more control over his artistry. It was now that he started to focus his attention on the very different world of Irish traditional music.

In 1979 he recorded his first solo album, "McGlynn's Fancy", which was the first recording ever in which the guitar is played in an authentic traditional style, and as such has been hailed as a classic in the traditional music world. His reputation was now spreading in a whole new direction. Arty subsequently became one of the most sought after musicians in the country, playing and recording with the likes of Christy Moore, Paul Brady, Donal Lunny and Liam O'Flynn . He played as a member of such prestigious groups as Planxty, Patrick Street, De Danann and the Van Morrison Band . In 1989, Arty and his wife fiddle player Nollaig Casey released their first duet album, " Lead the Knave " to great critical acclaim, and in 1990 they were awarded the Belfast Telegraph Entertainment Media and Arts Award for excellence in the field of Folk Music.

Arty is equally in demand as a live performer, recording artist and producer. The album "Barking Mad" by the group Four Men & A Dog , which was produced by Arty, was voted Folk Album of the year by Folk Roots Magazine . He produced Christy Hennessy's album, " The Rehearsal ", which remained in the Irish charts continuously for eighteen months and also collaborated with Frances Black on her first two solo albums, " Talk to Me " and " The Sky Road ", both of which have topped the charts in Ireland and have been critically received in the UK and America. Arty has composed music for several television documentaries and together with Nollaig arranged and played music for the sound track of the Irish feature film " Moondance " as well as " Hear My Song ", in which they also made an appearance. More recently Arty played on the sound track of the film 'Waking Ned Devine ' whose music was composed by Shaun Davey . In July 1995 Arty and Nollaig released their long awaited second album titled “ Causeway” on Tara Music, which was enthusiastically received by critics and music-lovers alike. The album, that was two years in the making, contains nine sets of original tunes that range from soft and gentle to strong and vibrant and display a unique love and understanding for the music and its origins. In 1997 Arty suffered a severe setback when he broke his wrist while on tour in the USA, however a quick recovery has seen him back playing with all his immense skills, after only a few months. As well as performing live throughout Europe with Liam O'Flynn he also co-produced Liam's new album “The Piper's Call” . In the last year, in addition to an intensive touring schedule with Liam, he has worked with world renowned producer Jim Rooney on the new Sean Keane and Charlie Landsborough albums and produced and played on the new Alan Kelly album “Mosaic” .

Reviews & Quotes

"The man's artistic authority shocks." Brian Friel, Author & Playwright

"It would be difficult to name anyone playing music who is the equal of Arty McGlynn for subtlety and complexity of harmonic invention." Kenny Mathleson - The Scotsman

"I first saw Arty play twenty years ago, he stunned the crowd that night with the brilliance of his guitar playing of traditional tunes and went on to become one of today's major figures on the Irish music scene. " Neil Johnston - The Belfast Telegraph

"To say McGlynn provided accompaniment would be a crime of oversimplification. His fleet unison lines gave the jigs and reels huge momentum and his chordal patterns, full of bass lines which resolved in his own good, come in an apparently infinite variety." Rob Adams - The Glasgow Herald.

Nollaig Casey is one of Ireland's most gifted musicians, with her own unique way of playing traditional Irish music on the fiddle and such an utterly distinctive sound that it would be impossible to mistake it for that of anyone else. This “sound” is so attractive to other musicians that there exists hardly any major Irish artist of the last twenty years with whom she has not worked.

Her new solo album “The Music of What Happened” was released in May 2004. Produced by Arty McGlynn , it features the playing of Sharon Shannon and other star guests. It showcases her exceptional expressive gifts and is a unique mixture of powerhouse Irish dance-music, meltingly beautiful airs, exquisite songs and her own memorable compositions - all suffused with her trademark lyricism and virtuosity.

NOLLAIG has been performing for many years as a duo with guitarist Arty McGlynn and more recently with a group consisting of fiddle, guitar, keyboards and percussion. They've toured the UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and their native Ireland.

Her powerful presence graced Donal Lunnys groundbreaking band Coolfin , of which she was a founder member and with whom she had a busy international touring schedule. One highlight was their performance in a special concert celebrating the Irish roots of American country music for Island: A Festival of the Arts in Ireland held at the John F. Kennedy Centre in Washington DC which was broadcast coast to coast on network television: they shared the stage with Ricky Skaggs, Emmy Lou Harris and Steve Earle . Nollaig has been working with Donal off and on for over twenty years: she joined the legendary band Planxty (of which Donal was a founder member) in 1980, touring Europe with them and recording the 1987 Live in Dublin album and Timedance with them. She's been involved in a large number of Donals projects in the intervening years.

Nollaigs prodigious technique and her unique ability to play both classical and traditional music with equal proficiency, coupled with her exceptional expressive gifts has inspired a number of composers to write orchestral pieces for her. In 2003 she performed in front of millions as soloist with the RTE Concert Orchestra in a work by Shaun Davey commissioned by the Special Olympics held in Dublin. With the same orchestra she performed a piece by Donal Lunny, commissioned in 1997 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Great Irish Famine , on several occasions, most recently at Expo 2000 in Hanover. In 1999 she gave the first performance in New York of a Concerto for Violin and Irish Fiddle by Evan Chambers , which had been commissioned by the Albany Symphony Orchestra .

She enjoys an unrivalled popularity among composers of film-music with an Irish tinge and has been the featured soloist on over twenty feature-films – most recently in Dancing at Lughnasa and Waking Ned . She was of course seen as well as heard worldwide in the 1992 Hear My Song (about the life of singer Josef Locke ). She is herself a prolific composer, writing for Coolfin, television documentaries and for her own recording projects.

Nollaig has recorded and worked with Enya, Van Morrison, Sinead O'Connor, Nanci Griffith, Ricky Skaggs, Rod Stewart, Emmy Lou Harris, Steve Earle, Riverdance, Donal Lunny, Mary Black, Frances Black, Carlos Nunez, Jim Rooney, Andy Irvine, Moving Hearts, The Indigo Girls, Spandau Ballet, Elvis Costello, Christy Moore, Liam O'Flynn, Dan ar Braz, Sharon Shannon, Maura O'Connell, Dick Gaughan, Paddy Keenan, Sean Keane, Liam Clancy & Tommy Makem, Mairtin O'Connor and her sister, the innovative and influential harper Maire Ni Chathasaigh , among many others. She was a star performer in Dan ar Braz' massively successful Heritage des Celtes project: both albums (released by Sony France) received Gold Discs in France and Heritage received the French equivalent of the Brit Awards. She has made two critically acclaimed albums, Lead The Knave and Causeway with Arty McGlynn .

She has subsequently toured with a wide variety of artists (mentioned earlier ) in Ireland, the UK. France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Libya, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Estonia, Japan, the U.S.A., Australia and New Zealand.

She is a frequent broadcaster: her countless RTE television appearances have included several on the prime-time Late Late Show, Nighthawks, Saturday Live and Sul t as well as on specialist traditional music programmes such as The Pure Drop . She's taken part in a Late Late Show Special on prominent Irish women musicians. She made frequent appearances on the major 1991 BBC TV series Bringing it All Back Home with members of U2, Donal Lunny and Arty McGlynn , and performed on the prestigious Good Morning America TV show when the series was launched in the USA.