The Pooka and the Fiddler & Happy as Larry Published in 2005 by Oxford Road Records. Buy this album now!

To celebrate the release of "The Pooka and the Fiddler & Happy as Larry," we have four minute samples of both stories available for download:
The Pooka and the Fiddler (mp3, 5.4 Mb)
Happy as Larry (mp3, 3.1 Mb)

We hope you like these stories. They are based, very loosely, on folktales I heard as a child. When we were asked to do a special family concert for the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival in 2004, I wrote the words of ‘The Pooka and the Fiddler’. Just as Seán Séamuisín’s fiddle tunes seemed to play themselves, so the story seemed to appear on the page as if it were dictated to me. There followed a period of wonderful fun and cooperation within the band, with all kinds of ideas and suggestions bouncing back and forth -- a spree of creativity. Later on, when we had the opportunity to record ‘The Pooka’, I wrote another story (‘Happy as Larry’) to complement it. Again, there was that wonderful surge of play and exploration, with band members contributing original tunes that, we all agreed, were perfect for the story. Not only that but they seemed to go especially well on the instruments that we consider our ‘other’ instruments. We sent a preview copy of the the stories to our good friends and patrons, Bert and Candace Forbes. Bert wrote back:

“Congratulations, Colcannon:
May the Pooka rise up before you,
May your fiddle be always in tune,
May you smell the sweet Irish mornin',
And may Larry give you the shirt off his back.”
We wish the same to you!

Mick Bolger