Lowlands is an album by Irish

Irish people

The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

 songwriter, and folk

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 singer Susan McKeown

Susan McKeown

Susan McKeown is an Irish songwriter, folk singer and producer.-Early years:Susan McKeown was born on February 6, 1967 to John Ryan and Jane Ann McKeown in Terenure, Dublin, Ireland. She was greatly influenced by her mother, an organist and composer who died in 1982...

, released in 2000.

The tracks on this album present an array of styles, including African, Appalachian, Middle Eastern and Irish. "Lord Baker" is often heard as fragment of a ballad, but here McKeown has included the full story, making this the longest track on the album. The Scots songs "The Dark Haired Girl" was translated into Irish by McKeown.

Track listing

All songs Traditional unless otherwise noted.

1. The Dark Haired Girl (An Nighean Dudh) (sung in Irish)
2. John Coughlin
3. The Hare's Lament
4. Slan agus Beannact/ Goodbye and Farewell (sung in Irish)
5. The Snows They Melt the Soonest
6. Nansi Og Ni Obarlain/ Young Nancy Oberlin (sung in Irish)
7. Lord Baker
   Young Beichan
   "Young Beichan" is a ballad, which with a number of variants and names such as "Lord Baker", "Lord Bateman", and "Young Bekie", was collected by Francis James Child in the late nineteenth century, and is included in the Child ballad as number 53 .-Synopsis:Beichan is born in London but travels to...
   
   [Lord Bateman. Child Ballad 53]
8. Dark Horse on the Wind (Liam Weldon)
9. The Lowlands of Holland
10. Bonny Greenwoodside
    The Cruel Mother
    "The Cruel Mother" is a murder ballad.-Synopsis:A woman gives birth to one or two illegitimate children in the woods, kills them, and buries them. On her return trip home, she sees a child, or children, playing, and says that if they were hers, she would dress them in various fine garments and...
    
    [Child Ballad 20]
11. To Fair London Town
12. The Moorlough Shore
    The Moorlough Shore
    -Synopsis:A young man praises the beauties of the countryside and the girl he has fallen in love with. She refuses his advances on the ground that she already loves a sailor. She will wait for her true love for seven years. In frustration the boy leaves his childhood home and sails away, still...
    
    

Personnel

• Aidan Brennan – guitar
• Mamadou Diabaté
  Mamadou Diabaté
  Mamadou Diabaté is a kora player. He began playing quite early in his life, became known as a musician in the area of Mali in which he lived, and has since moved to the United States, recording several albums.-Life and career:...
  
   – kora
• Johnny Cunningham
  Johnny Cunningham
  Johnny Cunningham was a Scottish folk musician. He was a founding member of Silly Wizard, as well as a member of Relativity, The Raindogs, and Nightnoise. Throughout his career, Cunningham was also a fiddler, composer and producer. His younger brother, Phil Cunningham, is a multi-instrumentalist...
  
   – fiddle
• Joanie Madden
  Joanie Madden
  Joanie Madden is an Irish-American flute and whistle player of Irish Traditional Music. She is best known as leader of the all-female group Cherish the Ladies, but has also recorded and performed with numerous other musicians, and as a solo artist. She also teaches master classes and...
  
   – whistle, low whistle
• Matt Darriau – kaval, Irish flute, clarinet, bass clarinet
• Ole Mathisen – clarinet
• Jamshied Sharifi
  Jamshied Sharifi
  Jamshied Sharifi was born October 17, 1960 in Topeka, Kansas to an Iranian father and an American mother. At an early age, Sharifi was exposed to Jazz and Middle Eastern music by his father and to European classical and church music by his mother. He began to study classical piano at age five and...
  
  – synthesiser
• Skuli Sverisson – electric bass
• Benjamin Wittman – percussion)
• Garry Leonard – guitar
• Greg Anderson – bouzouki
• Paddy League – bodhran
• Todd Schietroma – cahones, shakers, caxixis, handclaps
• Des More – guitar
• Eilis Egan – box
• Samir Chatterjee – tablas
• Oliver Straus – handclaps
• Wang Guowei – erhu
• Eaman O'Leary – banjo
• John Anthony – caxisis
• The group Lunasa consisting of:
• Donough Hennessy – guitar
• Kevin Crawford – whistles
• Sean Smyth – fiddle
• Trevor Hutchinson – acoustic bass

The following appear on the track "To Fair London Town":

• Michelle Kinney (cello)
• Cillian Valelly (uilleann pipes)