By Syd Bluett | BOOKS IRELAND | Summer 2013 ~ In early 1950s County Offaly, having laboured all day in a vast Bord na Mona bogland prairie, harvesting furnace fodder for electricity generators, Christy O’Brien would begin his long cycle homewards to his wife, four daughters and son Paddy—the writer of this lovely book—then a shy little boy permanently distracted in his love for Irish traditional dance melodies.

By Daniel Neely | IRISH ECHO | 06/05/13 ~ The name Paddy O’Brien is one most certainly familiar to lovers of traditional music. The noted button accordionist from Offaly has been a member of several notable groups, including the Castle Ceili Band, Bowhand, O’Rourke’s Feast and Chulrua (to name just a few) and in 2012 was named “Irish Traditional Composer of the Year” by TG4’s “Gradam Ceoil” program… However, his newest endeavor is not sound-related, but rather a memoir, “The Road from Castlebarnagh,” which focuses on growing up in County Offaly in the 1950s and 1960s, and describes the formative years of one of the tradition’s most talented musicians.

By Jim Walsh | MINNPOST | 02/25/13 — Paddy O’Brien is a world-renowned accordionist and traditional Irish music expert, but last month he received what may be the most rewarding reviews of his life – from “the neighbors,” as he calls them, when the St. Paul-based Irish music icon’s memoir “The Road from Castlebarnagh: Growing Up in Irish Music” was published in Ireland at the end of last year. “I heard from this guy, right here,” says O’Brien, 67, pointing to a grainy photo on the cover of the book, of him and his old friend Johnny Rourke, snapped by the latter’s mother on a June night in 1957 after the boys had finished sowing potatoes on the rural Ireland farmland where they grew up. Stacks of the books fill the living room of the Highland Park home that O’Brien shares with his wife, the novelist, critic, teacher, singer and Irish music culture vulture Erin Hart.

By Mary Ann Grossmann | SAINT PAUL PIONEER PRESS | 03/02/13 — Erin Hart and Paddy O’Brien met on a September night in 1981 on the stage of MacCafferty’s Irish pub on Grand Avenue. Erin had just returned from studying in Ireland and Paddy was performing with a trio playing traditional Irish music. Three decades later, this red-haired woman who grew up in Rochester, Minn., and her soft-spoken Irish husband are leaders of the Irish-American arts community, known for their music and writing.