Music, history, and food at the Doolin Music House

One of the highlights of visiting the Burren is spending time in the coastal town of Doolin, located near the Cliffs of Moher. You could think of this small town as the Nashville of traditional Irish music—this is where you go to hear the good stuff.

Traditional Irish or “trad” music commonly features the fiddle, tin whistle, flute, uilleann pipes, accordion, concertina, and bodhrán (a single headed drum played with a stick). The music started out being played in people’s homes but gradually made its way into the pubs, especially the pubs of Doolin. There are a half-dozen pubs in that town, led by Gus O’Connor’s Pub, where you can hear great trad music on any given night.

Getting the traditional experience at home

If you want a throwback experience of listening to trad music in someone’s living room, the Doolin Music House is your place for that.

The house, located on the outskirts of Doolin, is owned and lived in by the trad music legend Christy Barry and his partner Sheila Quinn. Their house has a spacious living room with a fireplace. Hanging on the walls are sketched portraits of famous trad musicians, as well as some paintings by Sheila.

Christy Barry, at right

I had contacted Christy and Sheila on a recommendation from their fellow Burren musician, Luka Bloom. Typically, visiting groups consisting of a couple of dozen people pay to come over to the Music House, where Christy performs for them. He will play the flute and whistle, as well as the spoons and other instruments, and is often accompanied by other musicians. Between tunes, he tells stories: about the tunes themselves, about the evolution of the trad music scene in Doolin over the past half-century, and about those legendary performers depicted on the surrounding walls. As Christy performs, Sheila serves wine and local delicacies such as smoked salmon and Irish artisan cheese.

A creative musician and painter

Christy has been playing music all his life, starting in Doolin in the 1970s. For a time, he played extensively throughout the U.S. and lived in New York and Chicago, but he returned to Doolin in the late ’90s.

Christy is an All-Ireland Whistle Champion and has also received two Lifetime Achievement Awards from Irish folk and trad festivals. And he is featured in the documentary film, The Job of Songs; I recommend the film highly to anyone interested in learning about trad music (see the bottom of this post).

Though much of trad music is about keeping the old tunes alive, Christy occasionally writes his own music. He also paints a bit. As for Sheila, she is a contemporary artist whose work is strongly influenced by the local landscape. She’s held solo and joint exhibitions at galleries throughout Ireland.

Christy and Sheila are in the process of opening their own art gallery, out back behind the house. The gallery also has a sitting area where Christy does some of his thinking and writing; it’s his cave, if you will (and it’s always good to set up your cave in proximity to works of art).

Heading out to Fitz’s Bar

The night they invited me over to the Doolin Music House, the idea was to have a chat at the house, then follow Christy over to Fitz’s Bar at the Doolin Hotel, where he was scheduled to perform that night.

While I was still at the Music House, a local painter named Marianne Potterton stopped by and the four of us had a salmon and salad dinner together. (I had a follow-up meeting with Marianne at her studio the next day.) Christy left dinner early to head to Fitz’s Bar for his evening performance. When the rest of us followed a bit later, we arrived to a packed pub where Christy and four other veteran trad musicians were in full swing. It wasn’t long before we were swigging Guinness and stomping to the beat along with everyone else at the crowded bar.

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Get a taste of trad music with Christy Barry and many others in “The Job of Songs,” an Irish music documentary from 2023.