Open Hearth

The brother-and-sister team of Andrew MacNamara on box and Mary MacNamara on concertina have recorded a couple of solo albums apiece, but haven’t recorded together as a duo before. What finally inspired them to do so were the memories they shared of innumerable nights of music at legendary Feakle pubs like Lena’s and Moloney’s back in the early 1970s with their father, mother and old friends Bill O’Malley on fiddle and Joe Bane on tin whistle. By way of homage, the two MacNamaras have recorded a selection of tunes learned on those nights – many of them called simply ‘Joe Bane’s’ owing to the said gentleman’s inability to remember titles. This is traditional music stripped down to the basics: no backing, no elaborate arrangements, no flights of virtuoso fancy – just two first-class musicians playing tunes that have stayed with them for a lifetime.