E.Bess... I am an NYC Uilleann Piper, I have had a band - comes and goes, called Sorcha Dorcha. I grew up in the Irish Ballad tradition and you can find a lot of my songs posted here, I wrote Engine 33 recorded by Mary Courtney's band Morning Star... Sessions are not terribly song friendly often in NY, other than O'Niels and a few others, they tend to be ballad sessions or tune sessions. Drop me a PM with a mailing address and I will send you a few of my CDs. It is a mix of traditional and modern ballads in a traditional mode, mostly on human rights issues - I work as a political scientist for marginalised cultural isolates such as Irish Travellers and Roma (Gypsies).
Cheers
Larry Otway