I was born in South Africa.

I was raised in England.

I live in Germany.

But Ireland has been a part of me for as long as I can remember.

My childhood was full of stories about Ireland.

My great-grandfather had the same name as I do - Daniel.

They called him Danny.

Thanks to him, I had an idea of Ireland long before I was able to come here, and I haven't been here for a long time.

I'm a violinist.

I perform all over the world and I have an Irish passport.

But Ireland is a country in which I have never lived.

Now I want to explore it in search of my family and its music.

They say the soul of Ireland lies in its music.

Here, music is more than just beautiful sound.

It contains the whole history of this country - wars, hardships, resistance - and no instrument is more closely linked to the history than this one.

The harp is omnipresent.

The national emblem of the country, the symbol of Irish identity.

If you want to discover more, you have to go to Kilkenny, to Siobhan Armstrong, "Come to St Mary's Cathedral," she wrote to me.

Siobhan is the queen of the old Irish harp, the Celtic harp.

She's played for Hollywood soundtracks and the Queen of England.

Hey, hey.

- Long time no see.

Welcome to Kilkenny.

- Thank you very much indeed.

I'm thrilled you're here.

- And we are in this beautiful... - Yeah, this is the chapter house of St. Mary's Cathedral, the Catholic Cathedral in Kilkenny.

So it's a beautiful 19th-century stone building where I often put on concerts.

It's a great chamber music venue.

So, Daniel, let me show you this instrument that I brought along today.

So this is quite precious to me because it's one of the rare copies of the national emblem of Ireland, the Trinity College, Brian Boru harp.

So it's a late medieval harp and possibly the oldest harp in Europe.

- Yeah, when I see this, I have to think about my Irish passport, right?

- You have this harp on the front of your passport and probably, I'm possibly the only person in the world who gets to have her very instrument on the front of her passport.

It's great.

- How cool is that?

- It's great.

So you want to want to hear what it's like?

- I'd love to.

- OK.

Which gives it this incredible melting sound.

- Wow.

Overtones.

- Yeah.

- Fantastic.

So this is the thing that commentators to Ireland have remarked upon from the 1100s all the way to the end of the tradition, even when they weren't very keen on us.

So as you may be aware, we have a little problem in Irish history that our neighbors keep visiting us every few hundred years and they're not necessarily just on their holiday.

Sometimes they really aim to stay and bed in.

And so from the 1100s, you have Gerald of Wales, who is the nephew of the first Norman Invader.

So he thinks we're just outrageous because we like to sit around and have fun all day.

He's a hardworking Norman, but he says, our harp, he says, Oh, their harp is much better than our guys in Paris or our guys wherever, their harp is amazing and their players are astonishing.

And he remarks on the sound, this melting sound.

And that's remarked upon each century.

- And, I mean, the rumor was that with Elizabeth I, that, you know, she came and burnt all the harps and the harpists and the whole thing disappeared.

- Well, they did, and they didn't.

- They yeah, they were very keen on obliterating Irish culture.

And at the same time, they brought Irish harpers back to the royal court and to aristocratic houses with them.

It's true in, I suppose, metaphorically, The Tudors were out to get rid of Irish culture so that they could colonize the place.

But they took the apogee of Irish musical culture and brought it back home with them.

- And tuning the harp is apparently a colonial... - It's a colonial metaphor.

- Keeping an eye on the Irish as well.

- For keeping them in check.

Yes.

- The harp is deeply connected to Irish history, and it has passed on stories for centuries, even with a piece Siobhan wants to play with me.

- I thought about this and I thought, well, Daniel comes home.

Danny Boy comes home.

And of course, Danny Boy, or the derriere also called the London Derriere, is possibly the most famous Irish tune.

It's traveled all around the world.

It's the one that everybody knows.

But funnily enough, some of us are not that keen on it in Ireland because it seems it's quite hackneyed, you know, because we've heard it a lot.

We've heard it a lot.

So we're not so keen on playing that tune.

But the harper that I've been working on for years, he played an antecedent.

So a tune that went before this tune, an earlier version, he played this.

And so this tune is called The Young Man's Sleep.

It's also The Young Man's Dream.

And it's a love song.

So I'd love to hear Danny play Danny, play the earlier version.

- I'll do my very best.

- Welcome home.

- Thank you.

Danny Boy is the secret national anthem of Ireland.

The story of a farewell to a loved one.

Someone has to go, has to leave home.

Just as millions of Irish did again and again, fleeing from hunger and poverty.

- Thank you.

- Thank you very much.

- Really wonderful to hear.

- Siobhan and I have known each other for a long time.

Both of us want to know where music comes from and how it was created, because only by exploring its origins will we understand it better.

She has now lived here in Kilkenny, a medieval town in the southeast of Ireland, for 25 years.

For Siobhan, the soundscape of the Celtic harp is a treasure that must never be lost.

This is one of the reasons why she returned to Ireland after years abroad and founded the Historical Harp Society of Ireland.

Many Irish people leave the country and don't come back.

My great-grandfather is a case in point.

You're one of the ones that did leave but did come back.

You were in Stuttgart for a few years.

- Quite unusual, I suppose, but I'm very happy, finally, to be back in, I suppose, what the Germans would call Heimat, you know, which we don't really have.

- There's no real translation for that word.

- No word for Heimat in English.

It took me a long time to get used to being here.

I railed against it when I came back.

I was used to German efficiency and things that worked, and it felt a little bit sort of Third World-ish.

You know, there's the whole, oh, it'll be grand, kind of attitude in Ireland.

That's fine until you're trying to do up a 19th-century stone house, as I was, in the countryside, and nothing is sort of straight or nothing...

So it took me a long time to really feel my way back into Ireland.

But I've been here for, I suppose, more than 20 years now, 25 years, and I'm now, I'm really happy to be back because my work is here, the thing that I have to do.

- Ireland needs you because you're representing something which is so inherent to the culture of this country.

All the research you're doing and the preservation of that is an incredible service to this country and to the culture here.

- I feel privileged to be able to do it.

I really do.

- And just to try and fill in some of that great chasm that's arisen because of colonial, the colonial project and all of the war and famine and cultural genocide that we've had over the centuries here.

So, we can't repair us, but we can do little things around the edges.

And hopefully you've heard, you know, you're hearing today the sound, the incredible, magical sound of that harp.

- Yes.

- And it's, you know, I don't tend to use the word magical very often.

I'm a very practical sort of harpist.

I'm not the unicorns and butterflies kind of harpist, but this is really a practical kind of magic, this instrument.

Ireland is the land of the harp, and it is the land of my ancestors.

I don't know much about the history of my great-grandfather, but I do know that he grew up here in Waterford, a poor town in the southeast of Ireland, and that from here, he later traveled to South Africa.

I know all of this from my father who is meeting me here.

This is an adventure we want to experience together.

My father spent the first half of his life in South Africa.

Today he lives in France.

Like me, it's his first visit to his grandfather's town, my great-grandfather.

We have an appointment at City Hall.

Maybe there are still documents about our family and Daniel McKenna in the city archives.

Hello.

- Good morning.

- Good morning.

- Welcome.

- Thank you so much.

- Delighted to have you here.

- Very nice to meet you.

- Would you like to follow me inside?

- Absolutely.

This is my father, Christopher.

- How are you?

Nice to meet you.

Joanne Rothwell is the city archivist of Waterford, and inside the mayor, Joe Kelly, is waiting for us.

- Welcome to the mayor's parlor.

- How are you?

Very nice to meet you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you very much.

- Good morning.

- Very pleased to meet you.

I understand you're here to look at some of our archives with Joanne.

- That's right.

Yes.

- And look back on some family history.

- Yes.

- Exactly.

It's his grandfather, my great-grandfather, Daniel McKenna.

Yeah.

- Brilliant.

Brilliant.

- So this is the first book that James McKenna, Daniel's father, appears in.

And you can see then James McKenna is listed.

So these were all houses that were built in around the 1890s by the corporation of Waterford.

- Right.

- But £2, ten shillings is quite a good house.

- Was it quite a good house?

- Good house at that point in time.

And you can see from the census in 1901, Daniel was in the house in Summerhill Terrace, then Daniel, aged 18, at that stage, still in school.

- So how old do you think Daniel would have been when he got on that boat and headed out?

- It would have been very shortly afterwards because he's not showing up in the 1911 census.

He's gone at that stage, and at 18, he's finishing up school.

But shortly after, after 1901. he possibly would have left at that stage.

- One of his great regrets was that he never, ever got, as he used to say, home, and I think he only arrived in South Africa, it was the First World, the World War.

Then that was followed by the Second World War, in which he got one of his brothers out, Stephen, I think, or one of the brothers came out and then immediately volunteered to go and fight in France, where he was killed.

- Yes, and it was actually reported in the newspapers here in Waterford in 1917, when it was Michael, his youngest brother who was in South Africa, who died.

It was reported because it was particularly sad.

It was a double tragedy because their other brother, James, was also serving in the First World War.

And so their mother, Margaret, had just gotten a notification that Michael had died.

She got a notification early in May that James had died in France, in a hospital there.

So two of Daniel's brothers died in the First World War.

- Yeah.

- It's amazing that you've been able to find all of this information.

It's absolutely...

It's quite something, isn't it?

- It is.

And that's particularly moving.

I had no idea that two of the McKenna boys had died in France.

And the family remained in the house for a number of generations.

So they were the first with James to move into the newly-built houses, and they stayed there for the best part of 60, 70 years.

- Gosh.

- Wow.

- So if you take a look at the valuation map, you can see exactly where the house is on the lane, which is 26, so you can see just along here.

But if you go along with that street now, you'll see it's actually number four Summerhill Terrace.

- And the house is exactly... - It is.... Well, I mean, pretty much exactly.

Yes.

- We are setting out to find this house and any traces of Danny McKenna in the city.

It's very moving to walk the same streets my great-grandfather used to walk some 120 years ago.

I wonder if he was already drawn to the big, wide world back then.

The area where they used to live is near the harbor.

- These buildings have been erected by the Waterford Corporation... ..in 1890s, so they were new.

Looks like six, eight, five...

Number four.

It's actually far less on...

I mean, it's so simple.

You know?

- Yeah.

- So this was great-grandfather Danny's last address in Ireland.

- I rather wonder how many rooms it could possibly have held, you know - Seven children.

- I know.

- So nine people, at least, would have lived in here.

- I mean, we could ring the bell, but... -Should we try?

- Should we try?

As she said, you know, I think she probably right, it's unoccupied.

The bell works.

- I wonder if you can get round the back.

You know, if there might be a... - Give us a sense.

Shall we go?

I don't know.

Shall we look?

You can see the width of it here.

I mean, they're tiny.

Six, seven... - You can see a little bit.

You can see how...

I mean, it's two and a half meters, isn't it?

It's not more than that.

- Yeah.

- One last shot.

- I find it extremely moving.

I'm very, very struck...

I've never lived in Ireland, but I grew up in an Irish family and in an entirely Irish universe without ever having been to Ireland.

This story of this house, I was told again and again and again how we came from a small cottage.

I always thought the cottage would be somewhere not in the city, but very small, very difficult, in faraway Ireland.

But it was home and I've never, ever been able to get back there.

My grandfather, it was his great, great pain, I think, and to stand in front of his door, being back here, and of course, the house is empty.

This is appropriate.

There's no-one there, but it's just the memories.

- Family means a great deal to me, to understand a little bit about where we all come from, because you've always told us we've been a mixture, a great mixture.

But when parts of the puzzle come together and you start to understand how the mixture is made and where it comes from, I think you start to understand where...who you are.

- Yeah.

- And this is very much part of who we are.

So, Danny set off from here, boarding a ship for England, and from there he sailed on to Cape Town, South Africa.

That's where my father was born almost 80 years ago.

He grew up under the apartheid regime and became a writer.

Our whole family has been on the move for centuries, basically, whether it's your family, whether it's Mum's family, there's this constant cycle of immigration that takes place.

- Yes, gypsies.

That's quite right.

- And then... ..a couple of decades later, you left and you became another immigrant.

You emigrated.

- There was a further unexpected accident of history, and that was I applied to leave South Africa, and I applied for a passport.

But because my books were disliked by the apartheid government, I was refused a passport.

I applied several times and they said no.

However, they said, you may leave, but you may leave only on an exit permit, which meant I could go, but I couldn't come back.

And so I was basically stateless, and I applied and got an Irish passport.

And I've traveled, as have all my family, and been, in a sense, an Irish citizen ever since I left South Africa.

So, rather like my grandfather, who was an Irishman who became South African, I'm a South African who feels himself to be at least partly Irish.

- And without that citizenship, our whole lives would have had taken a very different turn.

- Nobody would have had us, really.

That's right.

Yeah.

So, you know, think God for the Irish.

- Thank God, indeed.

Without my Irish great-grandfather, I might never have discovered the violin.

It was only thanks to this Irish passport that we were able to settle down in London, and only in London was my mother able to find work as a secretary to Yehudi Menuhin, the world-famous violinist.

In his house, I heard the sound of a violin for the very first time.

Thank you, Danny boy.

As a child, Ireland meant family, warmth, conviviality and music, singing and dancing, because that's what the stories I was told were about.

My journey here is also a journey to examine the origins of these stories.

How is tradition lived today?

In Tramore, a small town on the coast, outside Waterford, on the Irish Sea, there is a man who plays one of the most traditional but also most difficult instruments in Irish music.

How are you, sir?

- Welcome.

- Hey.

Nice to meet you.

- Good to meet you.

- Thank you very much for letting me come and visit you.

- Our pleasure.

Our pleasure.

- They let me drive this beauty.

- It's absolutely fabulous.

The Morris Traveler.

- That's it.

Travelling around Ireland, fantastic.

- Yeah, absolutely gorgeous.

- Jimmy O'Brien Moran is one of Ireland's finest uilleann pipers.

That's the Irish equivalent of the bagpipe.

- And this is my wonderful instrument.

This is the beast.

- Amazing.

Beautiful.

- Yeah, I think so.

They were invented in the 1730s and... ..they really represent the spoils of colonialism, which is a bit grim, so usually you've got ebony from, you know, the colonies, and ivory.

Of course, there was no elephants in Ireland, but this one was made around the 1820s, 1830s.

- Looks absolutely amazing, and it looks difficult.

It looks complex.

- Yes, it is, actually.

And, I mean, it's basically the chanter plays the melody.

These three pipes, called regulators, play chords when you press the keys down.

These three pipes are the drones, so they play a continuous tonic, well, the bottom note of the chanter, actually.

- And did you always want to play the pipes?

- My first interest in Irish music came listening to a group called Planxty around 1972.

I remember hearing the instrument break away from the rest of the music and I thought, Oh, my God, what is this sound?

It was just heavenly.

And I thought, Oh!

My life began that day.

- I'd love to hear it.

Or them.

Do I say it or them?

- Always a problem.

Is it the pipes...?

They are.

They is.

I don't know.

OK, so the power of the pipes is in the bellows.

So that would differ from the Highland pipes then, because you're not actually blowing in the air that way.

- Yes.

So, technically, if you were playing a slow piece, you could pick up a cup of tea and take a sip.

- Like a gentleman, as you said.

- Of course, yes.

- The Irish bagpipe is quieter, its sound is warmer and darker than the Scottish one, much less like a battlefield.

Fantastic.

Amazing, and that drone sound at the bottom.

It's rousing.

- Very beautiful tone.

- Yeah.

Really, it's like an organ, almost, actually.

It's funny that you should say that because the pipes were, I suppose, because of the regulations and so on, they were known as the Irish organ at one time.

Would you like to have a go?

- Well, I'd love to try, but I'm not sure if I'm going to get anywhere near making a sound.

- So your first task, should you choose to accept it... - Yes.

- ..is to put on the bellows.

- OK. - Just put it on as a belt, yeah.

To connect this into the... Yeah.

OK. Just, you can give it a slight twist.

Perfect.

And then I'll hook this up.

And this goes under your oxter, as they say, your arm slips in there.

But it goes up to here, if you can.

So now your thumb on the back note.

- The back note being here?

- Yes.

It's funny, isn't it?

Yes, that's the back note.

And flat, if you can.

Right?

And then the next finger, not the tips, but the flat part, right?

That's like the violin, actually.

- Yes, I suppose.

Yeah.

OK, just do that bit first and put it on your knee.

And then just blow with the bellows and you fill the bag, and then you squeeze the bag.

Very good.

This is not your first time.

- Hmm.

- And you're missing... You're missing that.

OK, back.

Come on.

OK. That's now perfect.

- OK. And this has to cover completely?

- Yes, absolutely.

- OK. All right, I'm getting there.

Give me a second.

- It's easy.

Great.

- That's not easy, I have to say.

But when you do a hit that sound, it's a great feeling.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You can hear the sound is there.

You may get dirty.

It's not a clean... - That's what we're here for.

Jimmy not only plays the uilleann pipes, he also builds them himself.

Behind his house, through the kitchen, in an old shed, is his magic chamber - the workshop.

- Le voila!

- Wow!

I can hear some cows out there.

- Yes, they're not mine, but yes, they're in the field next door.

We're in the countryside.

So this is the workshop.

- Amazing.

Look at this.

- Filled with all sorts of things.

A musician's nightmare.

Bandsaws that would just instantly ruin your career.

- I don't want to get close to this.

- Me neither, actually.

This one I use most for turning and, yes, a lot of fine work and so on.

- Jimmy is an artist and a craftsman.

He loves his instrument, especially the finely crafted pipes from the golden era of Irish bagpipes from the beginning of the 19th century.

At that time, they were symbols of an awakening national consciousness.

But the Great Famine brought this tradition to an end.

One million Irish died, two million emigrated, amongst them many musicians.

After that, says Jimmy, there was no more music in Ireland.

This is one of the reasons why he's so keen to see the uilleann pipes live on.

Wow.

- Now, if I was working on it on my own, of course, I should be taking more of a scoop because there's a lovely curve on this one, you know?

So that's the one you just made?

- Yeah, yeah.

It's almost like a sound box at the end of the drone, and this is the middle drone.

- And all of this would influence the sound?

- Not really.

- Not really.

- This is the beauty side of it, rather than the sound.

- Now, to me, these pipes are so intrinsic in Irish culture.

What's the acceptance, let's say, nowadays?

Do you have to persuade people to fall in love with it?

- I think the bagpipe, which we're a part of that family, it's one of those instruments, you either love it or you hate it, and some people just can't stand it, you know?

So there are many, many people playing the Irish pipes now, all over the world.

It's kind of amazing.

Thinking back, like, when I took them up in 1975...

..I went to a pipers' gathering, there was about 80 or 100 people at it, and there was probably 200 or 300, maybe, the world over, you know.

But it had been almost...

It had almost gone extinct, you know?

- Well, it's wonderful to watch you work.

- Would you like a go on this and...?

- No, no, no!

- Sense prevails.

- Why don't we play something?

- Well, that'd be lovely.

- Yeah?

At least I can be on my instrument.

I think I'll be happier.

- Great.

Super.

- OK. - We'll go back.

This is also the sound of Ireland... ..the sea, the seagulls, the cows in the green meadows.

From the southeast, we head west to the other side of Ireland, to Galway, the gateway to the Atlantic, land's end.

Being on the road is a big part of my life.

We musicians are a travelling people, especially with us violinists.

This restlessness is part of our DNA.

Because a violin is small, you can carry it on your back.

You can run off with it, further and further.

The Irish call the violin a fiddle.

It's one of the most important instruments in Irish folk music.

There he is.

And the master of the fiddle is Sean Smyth.

- Great to see you.

Fantastic.

- I can't believe it.

- Yeah, right here.

- Mr Sean Smyth.

- Mr Daniel, how are you?

- How are you?

- Yeah, fantastic.

- It's been ages.

- It's been too long.

- Yeah.

- Fellow redhead as well.

Yeah, I hear we could be related.

- I think we may be.

That's what I'm in search of right now, finding my Irish roots and learning about music.

And you very kindly let me join your amazing band for one number all those years ago.

But now I'm sort of searching for my great-grandfather and for what Irish music means to you, to everybody, to culture here.

Shall we get our instruments out and you can teach me something, or a lot?

Let me come over here.

- Take off my jacket.

- Yeah, I think I'll do that too, actually.

It's beautiful weather here.

- You should come more often!

- So, show me what you've brought first.

- Well, I think it's the same as...

It's an Irish fiddle, but I think it's the exact same as a classical violin.

- You've got the same strings as I have.

I use these.

There we go.

- Fantastic.

That's great.

- Yeah.

And you are...

I love this.

..the All-Irish Champion.

I think this is amazing.

The All-Irish Champion, not just of the fiddle, but of the flute as well, right?

- That's pushing it now, a little bit.

Not the flute, the tin whistle.

- Tin whistle.

OK.

But you're All-Irish Champion.

I mean, how cool is that?

- Yeah, it's amazing.

- I'm a bit shy about those things, but, yeah, I grew up and it's not a new...

When I was growing up, a lot of the parts of the learning process was you'd be involved in competitions and travelling around the country.

And in doing that, then you got to learn from other people, from your peers.

And I was very fortunate to come by a All-Irelands.

- And, you know, one of the questions I'm always asked is, what is the difference between a violin and a fiddle?

You know?

And I kind of know what I tell people, but I'd like to hear it from the horse's mouth.

What is the Irish fiddle?

What is the difference?

- The difference, for me, is the driver of the instrument.

- The driver!

- A basic fiddle, Irish, is, I think, the same, exact same instrument as what you would be playing.

So, you playing that instrument would be classical violin, or me playing it, then it would be an Irish fiddle.

What do you tell them?

Yeah, well, I think that's absolutely right.

And this idea of the folk fiddle I find so fascinating because a folk...

I mean, we're always told that the folk instruments are about dancing, and is that similar?

- That's exactly... Our music here is...

It's all about dancing.

Dance music, the way the form of the music is set up so the dancer can dance, the dance, it's repeated, and it's typically repeated, we're told, because they dance one part with the right foot, and they do the same step with the left foot.

- I'd love to hear this.

Will you play us something?

- We can try something.

- Wow, fantastic!

My God.

- Fingers are cold.

- Yeah, and the bow doesn't really leave the string, right?

Or does it?

It doesn't look like it does.

- I am lifting the bow just at the start of those triplets.

- Shall we put our jackets back on, do you think?

Having talked about all the weather!

- You can get four seasons in one day here.

- I'm noticing, I'm noticing.

Would you teach me a couple of the tunes?

Well, I'll try.

- I'd love to.

I'd love to.

- Because, I mean, you know, we're so used to being fixed into a into a score, which is, you know, like a prison, actually, for us, because we're locked into this construction.

But actually, if you go back to the baroque times, it was all freestyle.

It was all improvised.

You had...

I mean, you would have certain tunes and then you would improvise on them completely.

- That's an interesting point, too, because in Irish traditional music, the tune is kind of a very living thing, because as it moves from... Because we're taught, we pick it up by ear, so, often, when you're picking it up, a lot of people hear things differently, and then they play it differently.

So when it moves in a different level to the next musician, it changes the slight little bit or maybe a lot, depending on who the musician is.

And so then the actual tune is actually changing.

So when it's...

I feel sorry for the person that sat down first, wrote the tune and thought that was a great day's work.

Now that's the tune.

And a week later... - It's just the beginning, basically, the start of the journey.

- It is the start of the journey, and a week later it's a different piece of music.

So, yeah.

Let's see if we can change a few tunes.

- So this is a little bit older than yours.

- Oh, my gosh.

- That's the Guarneri Del Gesu, 1742, known as the Ex-Lipinski.

- Oh, my gosh.

- And... - That is some history.

- One of the things I love about Del Gesu is that it's absolutely not perfect, because he didn't have time for perfection.

You know, if you see a Strad, Stradivari is...

It belongs in a museum because it's absolute perfection.

But if you look at this, for example, and you look at the F holes, can you see how they're not totally round?

- Yes.

- And that's because he's just gone in there and he hasn't had time to correct.

He's just done this.

It's all made by a man, a person, a hand.

And it's not perfection.

And that's kind of something which I really love about the...about this.

Well, you know, the sound as well.

So what do I have to do?

Listen, obviously, first, right?

- So I'm not going to give you any notes.

So I'm going to play a phrase and you play it after me, then we try something like that.

Right.

So that's the part.

So the first phrase is... - Almost.

- And then... We would spend the evening doing that, you see?

So that's how we go about that.

And that's how my grandfather would have taught my father.

He then sat down and taught me that tune.

- And you would play it backwards and forwards until you got it in there?

- That's how it was taught.

So there was no notes.

So, just exactly as you were.

If you were growing up in the south, southeast, that's how you would have learned the fiddle.

Sean is one of the greats of Irish folk music, giving concerts with his band, Lunasa, all over the world, from America to Japan.

But actually, he's a doctor by profession and has his own practice - doctor by day, fiddler by night.

That's how he's always done it.

Galway is a buskers' town, famous for its street music.

Even pop star Ed Sheeran started his career here in the pedestrian zone.

He was just 12 then.

- They say you can't throw a stone in Galway without hitting a musician.

It's kind of true.

- In fact, every few meters, some musician is playing here, but this corner was still free.

In Ireland, they say the greatest compliment you can pay a musician is to dance.

Do you think we can make them dance?

- Daniel Hope, ladies and gentlemen.

- Sean Smyth.

Even if they didn't really dance, I think we've earned a Guinness.

Oh, wow, fantastic.

- This is the spot.

- Lovely, thank you very much.

- So, now you're getting the fine details.

- Oh, look at this.

- Just as it was.

So here's to having you in Galway, in the West of Ireland.

- Such a pleasure.

Such a pleasure.

My goodness.

As a student, Sean took part in sessions in this pub.

That's what they call it here when musicians get together to play old tunes and renew them in the process.

Tradition, change - in Irish music, they go hand-in-hand.

- I think music, like any art, it has to incorporate... ..through expression of who you are, and that, you know, that can be what you've learned, what you've experienced in life.

So, in that Irish tradition, music represents change and it's moving with the time.

When I hear great music, or it's on the radio, it stops me in my tracks and I look at the radio, it's like, it's so good, you know?

And I remember where I was when I hear... ..when I first heard The Bothy Band, when I first heard, you know... And music, and brilliant music, like any art, change people's world.

And that's the power of it.

- Well, here's to Irish music.

- Here's to Daniel Hope.

- Hey!

Thank you so much.

- You're very welcome.

- Pleasure.

Is music experienced with more passion in Ireland than elsewhere?

I remember a concert here in Dublin where the applause broke out even before I'd finished the last bars.

There was an energy in the hall that I have rarely experienced elsewhere.

It was contagious.

A concert where you get something back.

Dublin is a city of superstars.

U2 and Sinead O'Connor come from here.

And the superstar of the baroque was also in Dublin.

George Frideric Handel celebrated the premiere of his Messiah here.

The National Concert Hall is home to Ireland's foremost orchestra.

I have an appointment with the conductor, David Brophy.

We want to perform a piece by a composer who is considered by some to be Ireland's best kept secret.

- I would hug you.

We should probably do this.

- How are you?

- Nice to see you.

Really good to see you.

What are you doing in Dublin?

What's going on?

- I'm coming to find out something about Ina Boyle , and you're going to teach me, right?

- Well, hopefully something about Ina Boyle .

- Let's go in.

- How long have you been here?

- This is the second visit, so it's been very intense.

We're on the trail of a woman whose music was almost overlooked by history, Ina Boyle.

During her lifetime, her pieces were hardly ever performed.

Only now, more than 50 years after her death, is her music being discovered, and with it one of the country's most important female composers.

I love this hall.

I'm actually really very moved to think that one finds a piece somewhere, you know, you take out of a drawer, that has all this history, and we're bringing it back here somehow.

- Because a lot of her music ended up in a drawer.

We're still opening those drawers now, discovering this music that we never knew.

And I think now is the time for her, strangely.

- If you look at a picture of Ina Boyle l, she seems so serene and calm and beautiful, and the music, at least what I've seen on the score, I'm so excited we get to actually play it and hear it for the first time, but to look at it, it has something pastoral.

It has something calming and beautiful in it.

She seemed to have lived this idyllic life south of Dublin, in a kind of a beautiful countryside location, and you get that in the music.

And she was certainly privileged.

They had money, she could afford to travel to London, as she did.

- To go and study with Ralph Vaughan Williams, a kind of doyen, I guess, of English music, to a certain extent.

And yet she came back.

I mean, so many Irish don't come back.

My great-grandfather didn't.

They go out into the world and they spend their lives there, but she did come back and she stayed here.

What do you think it was that drew her back here?

- She seems to me like an enigmatic woman.

If I had to pin her down, I think she lived her life a little bit inside her head.

And I think she was a dreamer.

In a strange way, I admire her because she did something that probably would have fit an awful lot better across the water in England.

But she came back here and stayed here and just wrote music, and I think that's...

I think she knew she was writing a legacy for us to discover, I think.

And we're discovering it now.

- Ina Boyle did not go off into the world, but she created a music that can be understood everywhere... ..and in which you can feel this country - the wildness of its nature and the warmth of the people.

On this journey, a door has opened for me.

It has shown me a world that is as familiar as I always imagined it to be.

Wherever I went, people gave me the feeling, "You're one of us.

A friend."

Ireland is the home in which I never lived, but it feels like home.