![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/5173951_13_articleinline_EP2_20JOHN_20AND_20KHAKI_20KID_201.jpg\" "\\"John")
John Creedon and rapper Khaki Kid on the Musical Atlas of Ireland, on RT\u00c9 One.\u00a0<\/p>\nIt\u2019s hard to think of a better music show than John Creedon\u2019s nightly jukebox weekdays on RT\u00c9 Radio 1. It\u2019s partly due to his easy manner and the soothing voice. He puts the nation at ease. And as much as anything, it\u2019s thanks to his uncanny ear for the right tune. He\u2019s often asked how he picks a song.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s part science, part rhythm method,\u201d says Creedon. \u201cI listen with my solar plexus, not with my ears and not with my head. It bypasses the head, really. OK, the lyrics will speak to me. I’d say, \u2018My God, there’s a great truth in that\u2019 or \u2018There’s a brilliant turn of phrase there\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut for the most part, if I listen to, say, funk, my inner African man is roused. I start walking differently. I’m walking with two. I walk around the kitchen like a funky James Brown. Where do you feel it? How do you feel? Do you feel like punching someone’s head in because of a war-like march? Say Amhr\u00e1n na bhFiann, I’m really moved by that. I’m connected with all the people on the terrace beside me.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the latest edition of his Musical Atlas of Ireland travel series around Ireland, there\u2019s a twist on the formula \u2014 he focuses on how music shapes the identity of Irish people. In a three-part series, he chats with the country\u2019s finest musicians and balladeers, including Phil Coulter, Mary Coughlan and Damien Dempsey.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He investigates the revival of folk music in the 1960s, and he searches for Ireland\u2019s greatest love songs, old songs about forbidden love (the woman in love with the priest) or, for example, Donal \u00d3g, a ballad about a glorious chancer promising his lover \u201cgold rings on every finger\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cEpisode one has a very clear roadmap,\u201d he says. \u201cThere were three primordial moods in Irish music. These go back to pre-Christian times. The Dagda was a Celtic God who was said to own a harp. With his harp, he could summon up any emotion. He could summon Suantra\u00ed. That means a dream \u2014 a lullaby, a slow air might fit in there. Suantra\u00ed was music to soothe.<\/p>\n
John Creedon and rapper Khaki Kid on the Musical Atlas of Ireland, on RT\u00c9 One.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe second mood was Geantra\u00ed \u2014 the battle, the bonfires, the chest-beating, the drinking, the shouting, the roar, the bad language, the lepping, the dancing, the jigs, the reels. Even though these are very ancient notions, people get it. It\u2019s in there that lilting goes \u2014 diddle ey dum dee, diddle ey dum doh. Geantra\u00ed is about lifting the mood.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“There were some great old lilters like Se\u00e1mus Faye or there are these two now called Absolute Lilt. They\u2019ve millions of hits online; the Yanks are mad about them. They\u2019re two red-haired Irish girls and by God can they go \u2014 it’s vocal gymnastics.\u201d<\/p>\n
The third strand from the Dagda is Goltra\u00ed, which comes from \u201cag gol\u201d \u2014 to cry, to lament. It\u2019s about sorrow and sadness. Songs and music that are catalysts for grief. In a powerful segment of the show, Creedon calls on Eimear Noone, the only woman to conduct the orchestra at the Oscars ceremony, to reflect on mourning and her personal story of loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe broke it down and explained to me how a conductor or a composer induces grief,\u201d he says. \u201cWe spoke about the Confutatis, as it was called in Mozart’s Requiem, where he’s struggling between life and the other life, where he wants to go, but he wants to stay. He’s been pulled forward and back. It was the first piece I ever conducted upstairs in my bedroom. I used to constantly be conducting Mozart’s Requiem as a kid.<\/p>\n
![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/5173954_13_articleinline_John_20and_20Pat_20McCabe_20_1_.jpg\" "\\"John")
John Creedon and Pat McCabe on the Musical Atlas of Ireland.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe played for us [conducting an orchestra and the soprano Celine Byrne] this piece she had composed as an elegy for her child who didn\u2019t make it. She had a little boy who [died shortly after birth]. It induced a lot of good, healthy grief on the floor where we filmed it. It was very moving. If you watch her, she’s not just a conductor, she’s a performer. When you see her face, when she’s angry, she\u2019s angry. When she’s pulling the soprano in, she reaches out her hand and pulls her into the music.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the third and final episode of the series, Creedon catches up with John Spillane to unravel why, as the old saying goes, \u201cevery Irish song has two sweethearts \u2014 the person and the place\u201d, unpicking songs like The Banks of My Own Lovely Lee, Carrickfergus and Spillane\u2019s own classic Passage West, for their magic and love of place.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you look back, Se\u00e1n \u00d3 Riada was our great nationalist composer. Elsewhere, you had Finlandia by Jean Sibelius, which tells the story of Finland privately through music and rising up against Russia. Emmanuel Chabrier wrote Espa\u00f1a.\n <\/p>\n
\u201cI realise now that my parents lived in a romantic period in Ireland. Very hard times financially, but it was romantic. Boys had Brylcreem. The swashbuckling man with the broad shoulders was very much in vogue. The shy girl, all these things were very much part of that 1950s’ Ireland. As tough as things were, there was a great attraction to romance. We have a capacity for romance. That’s why I’m glad we did love of place as being one of the great loves.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0The first episode of Creedon’s Musical Atlas of Ireland screens Sunday, August 2, 6.30pm on RT\u00c9 One<\/p>\n
\n \u00a01. The Rose of Coburg Street: Jimmy Crowley\u2019s work is totally underestimated. That work he has saved is gargantuan \u2014 he has gathered thousands of Irish songs. He has a song about The Rose of Coburg Street \u2014 that’s the street I grew up on. Well, technically, I grew up on Devonshire Street, but the house next-door was on Coburg Street. It\u2019s a love song. We need to salute Jimmy Crowley.<\/p>\n
\n 2. Bantry Bay: My mother’s song was Bantry Bay, so I’ll never hear that without thinking of her. People assume that children don’t get scenery, but we did. We got it because my mother loved her own place so much. She grew up on a farm in Adrigole in West Cork on the Beara Peninsula, the most beautiful place. I often say, \u2018You can’t ate scenery’. We could see the beauty of Bantry Bay spread out before us. We could see the dramatic hills that ripple all the way along Beara out to the Atlantic. That’s captured in Bantry Bay.<\/p>\n
\n 3. Inchegeelagh Lass: My father\u2019s song was Inchegeelagh Lass. I can remember him singing in the car. He had a fine voice. We’ve songs for every town and village in Ireland. The melodies are often borrowed because a lot of people didn’t have instruments so they’d know a tune and a poet would write a song to fit that. Inchegeelagh Lass is a classic example that sits on the melody of Skibbereen. It’s set in Boston, Massachusetts, about this guy, an outlaw, who legged it out of Ireland. That\u2019s the tale. ‘My winsome rogue, my M\u00e1ir\u00edn \u00d3g, my Inchegeelagh Lass.’ He never gets back to her, of course. A story replicated all over this country, people separated by one problem or another. It\u2019s the most beautiful song.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s hard to think of a better music show than John Creedon\u2019s nightly jukebox weekdays on RT\u00c9 Radio…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,6405,43],"class_list":["post-574366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music-movies-reviews-munster","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}