Feature: A lyrical life in ‘The Road From Castlebarnagh’

Jim Walsh of MinnPost (and fellow roots musician) sat down with Paddy for an interview when THE ROAD FROM CASTLEBARNAGH was launched locally in March 2013. Jim wrote a wonderful piece about Paddy when Volume One of the PADDY O’BRIEN TUNE COLLECTION came out in the mid-90s.

Paddy O’Brien shares a lyrical life in ‘The Road From Castlebarnagh’

By Jim Walsh | 02/25/13

Paddy O'Brien

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.

Read the full article at the MinnPost site.