About this episode
We're celebrating the LGBTQ+ Celtic musicians this Pride Month today on the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast #712 . Subscribe now ! Malin Lewis, The Homespun Ceilidh Band, Bua, Callanish, Dancing With Hobbits, Ermagerd the Bard, Alexander James Adams, Seumas Gagne, Melanie Gruben, Ockham's Razor GET CELTIC MUSIC NEWS IN YOUR INBOX The Celtic Music Magazine is a quick and easy way to plug yourself into more great Celtic culture. Enjoy seven weekly news items for Celtic music and culture online. Subscribe now and get 34 Celtic MP3s for Free . VOTE IN THE CELTIC TOP 20 FOR 2025 This is our way of finding the best songs and artists each year. You can vote for as many songs and tunes that inspire you in each episode. Your vote helps me create this year's Best Celtic music of 2025 episode. You have just three weeks to vote this year. Vote Now ! You can follow our playlist on YouTube to listen to those top voted tracks as they are added every 2 - 3 weeks. THIS WEEK IN CELTIC MUSIC 0:11 - The Homespun Ceilidh Band "De'il In The Kitchen / The Drunken Piper" from Home With The Homespun Ceilidh Band Daphne Eftychia Arthur (pronounciation eff - ti - HEE - ah) T and L 3:19 - WELCOME 5:26 - Bua "John Joe Hartnett's / Spellan the Fiddler" from Down the Green Fields Brian Ó hAirt : vocals, sean - nós dance, concertina 9:29 - Callanish "The Wind that Shakes the Barley" from Callanish John Adams: Fiddler 12:58 - Dancing With Hobbits "Hobbit Hornpipe" from Dancing With Hobbits Sam Gillogly: Fiddle 15:22 - THANKS 17:44 - INTREVIEW: INTRODUCTION 23:43 - Malin Lewis "Hiraeth" from Halocline 27:59 - INTERVIEW: INSPIRATIONS 35:15 - Malin Lewis "Trans" from Halocline 38:20 - INTERVIEW: RAPID FIRE QUESTIONS 45:08 - Malin Lewis "The Old Inn" from Halocline 48:52 - FEEDBACK 52:55 - Ermagerd the Bard "I Walk Among You" from single 55:31 - Alexander James Adams "Your Coming Spring" from The Blue Rose Rare and Other Faerie Tales 1:01:16 - Seumas Gagne "Tir Nan Og" from Baile Ard 1:06:32 - Melanie Gruben "Water Charges Song" from Like a Tide Upon the Land 1:11:30 - CLOSING 1:12:37 - Ockham's Razor "I'm Coming Home Northumberland (2024)" from Garnet Pride Month with Celtic Music #463 1:18:36 - CREDITS The Irish & Celtic Music Podcast was produced by Marc Gunn, The Celtfather and our Patrons on Patreon. The show was edited by Mitchell Petersen with Graphics by Miranda Nelson Designs . Visit our website to follow the show. You'll find links to all of the artists played in this episode. Todd Wiley is the editor of the Celtic Music Magazine. Subscribe to get 34 Celtic MP3s for Free. Plus, you'll get 7 weekly news items about what's happening with Celtic music and culture online. Best of all, you will connect with your Celtic heritage. Please tell one friend about this podcast. Word of mouth is the absolute best way to support any creative endeavor. 👣 Episode 4: The Future Is ListeningChange doesn't happen alone. Start a conversation. Ask a question. Vote like the planet depends on it—because it does. Your children, your neighbors, and your future self are counting on you to speak up today. Promote Celtic culture through music at http://celticmusicpodcast.com/ . WELCOME THE IRISH & CELTIC MUSIC PODCAST * Helping you celebrate Celtic culture through music. I am Marc Gunn. I'm a Celtic musician and also host of Folk Songs & Stories. This podcast is for fans of Celtic music. We are here to build a diverse Celtic community and help the incredible artists who so generously share their music with you. If you hear music you love, please email artists to let them know you heard them on the Irish and Celtic Music Podcast. Musicians depend on your generosity to release new music. So please find a way to support them. Buy a CD, Album Pin, Shirt, Digital Download, or join their community on Patreon. You can find a link to all of the artists in the shownotes, along with show times, when you visit our website at celticmusicpodcast.com . Email follow@bestcelticmusic to learn how to subscribe to the podcast and you will get a free music - only episode. You'll also learn how to get your band played on the podcast. Bands don't need to send in music, and You will get a free eBook called Celtic Musicians Guide to Digital Music . It's 100% free. Again email follow@bestcelticmusic WHAT IS AN ALBUM PIN? An album pin is a lapel pin with artwork inspired by a specific album or song from an album. It could be the actual album artwork or it could be inspired by a specific track on the album. The best album pins stand out on their own. They appeal to more than just your fans. It is simple, bold, and visually engaging. However, what truly makes it an "album pin" is that the purchaser also gets a digital album with their pin. I have an entire blog on my website with details including templates for you to make your own album pin jacket. THANK YOU PATRONS OF THE PODCAST! 🎶 Thank You for Powering the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast! 🎶 Because of generous patrons like you, the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast releases new episodes nearly every single week . Your support doesn't just fund the show—it fuels a movement. It helps us share the magic of Celtic music with thousands of new listeners and grow a global community of music lovers. Your contributions pay for everything behind the scenes: audio engineering, stunning graphics, weekly issues of the Celtic Music Magazine, show promotion, and—most importantly—buying the music we feature from indie Celtic artists. And if you're not yet a patron? You're missing out! Patrons get: Early access to episodes Music - only editions Free MP3 downloads Exclusive stories and artist interviews A vote in the Celtic Top 20 Join us today and help keep the music alive, vibrant, and independent. 🍀 A special thanks to our Celtic Legends: Rick Boyce, Bruce, Daniel Ide, Brian McReynolds, Marti Meyers, Alan Schindler, Margreta Silverstone, Emma Bartholomew, Dan mcDade, Gerald F Boyle, Miranda Nelson, Nancie Barnett, Kevin Long, Gary R Hook, Lynda MacNeil, John Sharkey White, II, Kelly Garrod, Mike Schock, Annie Lorkowski, Shawn Cali HERE IS YOUR THREE STEP PLAN TO SUPPORT THE PODCAST Go to our Patreon page. Decide how much you want to pledge every month, $4, $12, $25. Keep listening to the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast to celebrate Celtic culture through music. You can become a generous Patron of the Podcast on Patreon at SongHenge.com . TRAVEL WITH CELTIC INVASION VACATIONS Every year, I take a small group of Celtic music fans on the relaxing adventure of a lifetime. We don't see everything. Instead, we stay in one area. We get to know the region through its culture, history, and legends. You can join us with an auditory and visual adventure through podcasts and videos. In 2026, we're traveling to the Celtic nation of Galicia in Spain. We'll dive deep into the history and legends of the Galician Celts, uncovering their connections to Ireland, Scotland, and beyond. We'll walk the same lands where Celtic warriors once roamed, hear the myths passed down through generations, and experience the magic of authentic Galician Celtic music, alive with passion and history. This isn't just a trip—it's a journey into the heart of a Celtic culture unlike any other. Will you join us? Learn more about the invasion at http://celticinvasion.com/ #celticmusic #irishmusic #celticmusicpodcast I WANT YOUR FEEDBACK What are you doing today while listening to the podcast? I'd love to see a picture of what you're doing while listening. Is there a new Celtic CD or Celtic band that you heard of or saw? Send a picture. Email me at follow@bestcelticmusic. Ermagerd the Bard wrote about this next song: "The song is what I wrote in response to a real thing that happened to me once upon a time while being a queer medievalist on the internet. I've been involved in the SCA for a couple of decades, and am also openly genderqueer. And this one time one of my recordings was used in a podcast where the theme of the episode was my kingdom, and due to some miscommunication…. there were some misspellings of names and titles of performers and a couple of song titles were incorrect. Well somebody in our kingdom proudly posted the episode in our kingdom's facebook group and said hey, look at our bards, this is cool. And I took it upon myself to comment with a few corrections so people would know who the performers were and what those songs were, and thank the poster for being excited about it. A while back the committee within the SCA that is in charge of registering people's names and titles and such on an international level had been working on finding alternative titles for genderqueer and nonbinary type members so they wouldn't have to use titles like Lord/Lady, and this pertains to me because I'm genderqueer. So in my comment I remarked that my name would be written Ermagerd, Nobilis, and that nobilis wasn't a surname, it's a less gendery Latin form of Lord/Lady and it's the title that describes my awarded status in the SCA. Well this one particular ancient member took a huge offense to the existence of ungendered titles and people, and threw an angry rant into the comments. How dare we harsh her medieval vibe, nonbinary people aren't historically authentic, why does everybody have to shove their gayness down her throat, why can't we pretend "politics" doesn't exist when we're playing medieval dress - up, etc. etc. I never responded to her directly, but I watched as my whole kingdom rose up to defend not just me, but the historical existence of other genders of people, the importance of acceptance in a big - tent international hobby group, the importance of the SCA's core values of chivalry, honor, and courtesy, the years of dedicated research done by the names and titles committee... and all this from people located in Texas and Oklahoma. The consensus was that yes we genderqueer people are historical, there's tons of proof, and people's very lives aren't just "politics", and even if it was just some modern thing, she didn't drop rants like this against people wearing glasses and using wheelchairs and indoor plumbing, and if she wanted to call herself by her (also made - up) venerable title, she could very well try to be a good example for treating other people well. It was a wondrous thing to behold, and this conversation unfolded into hundreds of comments, largely supportive and accepting, over a couple of days of commentary…. I Walk Among You took shape in my head on the second day, and it's intensely personal. I'm real, all of us are real, we're not just citations and talking points and theory and psychology and modern trends and political correctness and wokeism, we're human beings with lives, and feelings, just like the queer people who came before us in all the cultures in all the eras throughout time. I've performed it twice, once in a tavern during my own set, to thunderous applause, and once as a guest artist in a more famous friend's concert, and again the clapping went on longer than I expected. I think people need to hear that we were always here, and I think people need to hear it in forms that touch their feelings, like storytelling and songs. It's especially important that younger queer people get to hear that they're not a fad, that we had ancestors, that we have history, that they're not alone but the inheritors of a proud tradition of sacred people surviving and thriving for centuries upon centuries. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest."