RiGGy and Pete,

Your message arrives at an opportune time, as I have just started exploring the connection between Irish and Bluegrass (and Blues) myself. I started playing Irish fiddle tunes about nine months ago. My teacher would occasionally throw in bluegrass like sounds--he would explain that they are not "Irish" or "Celtic" but they sounded so natural, that I was sure the traditions are much closer than the categorization allows.

At any rate, I suggest you also post you inquiry to the Irtrad Listserve. They have a lot of serious students of Irish and Celtic music. If the regulars don't have direct answers for you, they can probably point you in the right direction for your research. I would be interested in what you discover.

The information for the listserve is:

List Address: IRTRAD-L@LISTSERV.HEANET.IE To Subscribe Send mail to: LISTSERV@LISTSERV.HEANET.IE With the command: SUBSCRIBE IRTRAD-L Your Name in the body of the message. (i.e., fill in your first and last names after the list name).

mc