An Irish Christmas --- Various artists --- Year unknown (Celtic Note)
Be the hokay, 'tis an Irish Christmas an' no mistake, boy!
Ah, sure: I'm not averse to slagging off my home country when it suits, and if there's one thing Irish people love it's Christmas. And drink. And presents. And drink. And Santy. And drink. You get the idea. Here we have some of the (ahem) cream of Irish music belting out or playing their renditions of Christmas songs and Irish traditional ones too. So we have the great Phil Coulter giving us a lovely version of "O holy night", Maura O'Connel singing "My Irish Molly-o" (yeah...) and Moya Brennan with a lovely little Irish song called "Codail a linbh" (sleep o child), while some shower called The Voice Squad tackle "The parting glass" and "The holly she bears a berry" (indeed), with the youngsters from, er, Slane National School taking us through "Away in a manger" and "Silent night" (sung in Irish).
Yeah, it's enough to make you hide your head and feel embarrassed to be Irish! We even get a snippet from "Angela's ashes", with something called "The pig's head", and the Celtic Tenors (yeah, we have them too, though due to the financial meltdown they're only worth about eight-fifty!) hit us with "O come all ye faithful" and of course, "Danny boy". Sigh.
TRACKLISTING
1 The Holly She Bears A Berry - The Voice Squad
2 An Irish Blessing - Roma Downey
3 The Parting Glass - The Voice Squad
4 Away In A Manger - Slane National School
5 The Dromcolliher Set - Ger Kiely And Band
6 Flower Of Maherally - Brian Kennedy
7 Oh Holy Night - Phil Coulter
8 Adeste Fideles (Come All Ye Faithful) - Celtic Tenors
9 Oiche Ciuin (Silent Night) - Slan National School
10 My Irish Molly-O - Maura O'Connel
11 Codail A Linbh (Sleep O Child) - Moya Brennan
12 Be Thou My Vision - Roma Downey
13 Remember Me - Brian Kennedy
14 The Pig's Head (excerpt from Angela's Ashes) - Frank McCourt
15 Danny Boy - Celtic Tenors
16 Steal Away - Phil Coulter