While many people credit Riverdance,1 the step-dancing extravaganza that has been crisscrossing the globe for most of a decade and still remains popular, it was not that production, beguiling as it is, that is logically credited with the popular mania for Irish music. That accolade would more properly go to The Chieftains, a four-decade-old troupe of exceptional performers and musicians whose internationally feted harper, Derek Bell, was the first of the group to pass away, on October 17, 2002. Although the entire group is composed of accomplished musicians, only Bell had been a bona fide child prodigy, composing his first major work before the age of ten. Like the historical Turlough O"Carolan, the Blind Harper, Bell was slated as a youth to go blind, impelling his parents to surround him with musical instruments (The Chieftains Web site). He did not, in fact, go blind, but he had found his calling.

             Riverdance gives a visual as well as aural glimpse of what it means to be Irish. The Chieftains, however, have been able to help their fans "discover what it means to live and die in Ireland, then and now, a land where failed efforts at transforming or controlling life combine with full powers of evocation and articulation; a land which inspires." through their music alone, using a "tonal range defined by marches and elegies" (O"Connell 1993 21ff).

             While the multiple-Grammy-winning group is almost without dissention regarded as the premier Irish traditional music group in the world, they are certainly not alone in producing the genre, nor, strictly speaking, do they cover the entire range of Irish traditional music, a range that includes the solo 'lilting" that might best be described as the Irish national answer to the Gregorian Chant, "rebel songs," and pub ditties. The Chieftains" Kevin Conneff does handle what little lilting is found in a Chieftains album or concert, but certainly, the form is not a mainstay of their musical opus.