While many people are predicting the demise of the CD, County Offaly native and Minneapolis resident button accordionist Paddy O’Brien hasn’t given up on them yet. “I’m very much in favor of them as a way to present the music,” he says. “They keep me on my toes.” O’Brien isn’t just talking the talk. His new CD, The Sailor’s Cravat (New Folk Records in the US, and Cló Iar-Chonnacht in Ireland), has just been released and he has a host of others in the works, none of which he’s afraid of releasing into an uncertain industry.

Paddy O’Brien is one of the great keepers of the flame in Irish traditional music. Despite –or paradoxically because of – living outside Ireland for many years, he has retained a profound attachment to the music and cultivated a deep and fertile furrow around St Paul, Minnesota, with his playing, mentoring and teaching. He is held in high regard by his fellow-musicians and is one of the great Irish tune collectors with many rare and unusual tunes lodged in his head.