The Green Fields of America is an ensemble which performs and promotes Irish traditional music

Music of Ireland

Irish Music is the generic term for music that has been created in various genres on the island of Ireland.The indigenous music of the island is termed Irish traditional music. It has remained vibrant through the 20th, and into the 21st century, despite globalizing cultural forces...

 in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

"The Green Fields of America" was formed in 1978 in Philadelphia and still led by musician and folklorist Mick Moloney

Mick Moloney

Michael "Mick" Moloney is a traditional Irish musician and scholar. Born in Limerick, County Limerick, he was an important figure on the Dublin folk-song revival in the 1960s. In 1973, he moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...

. The band was created to present and tour some of Irish America's finest musicians and dancers. "The Green Fields of America" was the first group on either side of the Atlantic to bring together Irish vocal, instrumental, and dance traditions on the concert and festival stage. Featuring Irish stepdance

Irish stepdance

Irish stepdance is a type of performance dance originated in Ireland from traditional Irish dance, characterised by solo dancers who dance with hands by their sides and upper body stiff, making quick, intricate movements of the feet, often with a troupe. Irish stepdancing was popularized by the...

 they introduced their sound to general American audiences.

Among those who got their start performing with The Green Fields are Seamus Egan

Séamus Egan

Séamus Egan is an Irish musician.-Early days:Séamus Egan was born in Hatboro, Pennsylvania to Irish émigrés Jack and Ann Egan. At the age of three his parents moved the family back home to County Mayo, Ireland....

, Eileen Ivers

Eileen Ivers

Eileen Ivers is an Irish-American musician.Eileen Ivers was born in New York City of Irish-born parents and grew up in the Bronx. She spent summers in Ireland and took up the fiddle at the age of nine. Her teacher was the Irish fiddler Martin Mulvihill. She toured with Mick Moloney's band The...

, Marie Reilly, Donny Golden, Jean Butler

Jean Butler

Jean Butler , is an Irish American Irish dancer, choreographer, and occasional actress. She is best known for originating the principal female role in the Irish dance company Riverdance.-Personal life and education:...

 and Michael Flatley

Michael Flatley

Michael Ryan Flatley is an American Irish dancer, choreographer, actor, musician and occasional television presenter. He became internationally known for Irish dance shows Riverdance, Lord of the Dance, Feet of Flames, and Celtic Tiger...

. Playing such venues as Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

, Wolf Trap

Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts

Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, known locally in the Washington, D.C. area as simply Wolf Trap, is a performing arts center located on 130 acres of national park land in Wolf Trap, Virginia...

, The Smithsonian Institution

Smithsonian Institution

The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...

, The Festival of American Folklife (now the Smithsonian Folklife Festival

Smithsonian Folklife Festival

The Smithsonian Folklife Festival, launched in 1967, is an international exhibition of living cultural heritage presented annually in the summer in Washington, D.C. in the United States. It is held for two weeks around the Fourth of July holiday...

), the Milwaukee Irish Fest

Milwaukee Irish Fest

Milwaukee Irish Fest is a yearly ethnic festival held at the Henry Maier Festival Park, on the Lake Michigan, USA, every third weekend in August. More than 130,000 people attend the Fest each year to take in nearly 250 acts on 17 stages. The four-day festival in downtown Milwaukee started in 1981...

, and The National Folk Festival

National Folk Festival (USA)

The National Folk Festival is an itinerant folk festival in the United States. Since 1934, it has been run by the National Council for the Traditional Arts and has been presented in 26 communities around the nation...

, the Five members of the band – Liz Carroll

Liz Carroll

Liz Carroll is an Irish-American musician. She was born in Chicago of Irish parents. In 1974 she won the All-Ireland under 18 fiddle championship. The next year she won the All-Ireland Senior Fiddle Championship....

, Jack Coen, Michael Flatley, Donny Golden and Mick Moloney – have received National Heritage Awards. Radio Telefís Éireann

Raidió Teilifís Éireann

Raidió Teilifís Éireann is a semi-state company and the public service broadcaster of Ireland. It both produces programmes and broadcasts them on television, radio and the Internet. The radio service began on January 1, 1926, while regular television broadcasts began on December 31, 1961, making...

, Ireland’s national broadcaster, commemorated the twentieth-anniversary of the group on St. Patrick’s Day, 1999.

A nationally televised documentary on their history and cultural contributions was presented. Among the musicians joining Mick Moloney for the performance at Re-Imagining Ireland, were singer-songwriter Robbie O'Connell

Robbie O'Connell

-Life:Robbie was born in Waterford and grew up in Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary, where his parents had a small hotel. He spent a year touring folk clubs in England before enrolling at University College Dublin where he studied Literature and Philosophy. Being a newphew of the Clancy Brothers,...

, Jerry O'Sullivan

Jerry O'Sullivan

Jerry O'Sullivan is a contemporary Irish-American musician.Jerry was born in New York. As a youngster he learned Scottish highland bagpipes. Following a visit to his cousins in Dublin he took up uilleann pipes....

 (uilleann pipes), and the dancers Donny Golden and Sinead Lawlor. Old-time fiddler, guitarist, banjoist, and singer Bruce Molsky

Bruce Molsky

Bruce C. Molsky is an American fiddler, banjo player, guitarist, and singer. He primarily performs old-time music of the Appalachian region.Molsky was born in 1955 at New York Infirmary in Manhattan, and grew up in The Bronx...

 and singer-composer Tommy Sands

Tommy Sands (Irish folk singer)

Tommy Sands , Mayobridge, County Down, Northern Ireland, is a folk singer, song writer, radio broadcaster, and political activist. He performs with his 3 siblings as The Sands Family; solo as Tommy Sands; and with his son and daughter as Tommy Sands with Moya and Fionán Sands...

 were also guest appearing.

The current (2009) membership in the group consists of Moloney, O'Connell, long-time associate Billy McComiskey, John Doyle

John Doyle (musician)

John Doyle is an Irish musician and songwriter. For four years he served as acoustic guitarist with the Irish/American band Solas. He is now an active solo artist...

 (formerly of Solas) and Athena Tergis.