Mike Rafferty

Mike Rafferty was born in 1926. He grew up in Ballinakill, East Galway in the heart of a locality steeped in the very best of old-style traditional music. Mike is an outstanding exponent of the East Galway style of flute playing. He learned his music from his father, Tom “Barrel” who played flute and uilleann pipes. Mike emigrated to the United States in 1949 and has appeared at an extensive array of concerts and festivals all over America including the Smithsonian Institution’s Bicentennial Festival of American Folklife in 1976 and toured with the Green Fields of America. Mike has appeared on many recordings and has recorded three albums with his daughter Mary; "The Dangerous Reel", "The Old Fireside Music", "The Road from Ballinakill" and he released his solo CD "Speed 78" in 2004 . Mike has devoted a lifetime to exploring, performing and teaching traditional Irish music on both sides of the Atlantic. Recently, he was named Irish Echo's Traditional Musician of the Year.

Mike, now living in New Jersey, is joined by his daughter Mary on button accordion and her husband, Donal Clancy (son of legendary Liam Clancy) on guitar as they play two jigs: "The Lilting Banshee" and a jig which Mike learned nearly sixty years ago from his father.