A recording of a public interview with fiddle player Martin Hayes, conducted by Journal of Music editor Toner Quinn at Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann 2024.

It is just over thirty years since I paused on my way out of J. McNeill’s music shop on Capel Street in Dublin to look at the tapes for sale. They were held in a tall, slender wooden case by the door with the most recent at the top. This is where I first came across Kíla’s Handel’s Fantasy as well as the re-release of Kevin Burke’s Sweeney’s Dream. On this day there was just one tape on the top shelf. The cover seemed purposefully blurred to represent motion and presented a musician standing holding the fiddle with the bow hanging from one finger. New tapes were not cheap for a student, but somehow I had precisely the right amount of money. On impulse, having never heard the name of the musician before, I bought it and jumped on the bus to Waterford.