LISTEN: Shilelagh Law’s Irish American story on the TAYSHT podcast
Posted by Jim on February 3, 2023
Shillelagh Law, one of the undisputed greatest Irish bar bands working today, catches up with Mike Farragher on the TAYSHT podcast as they embark on their 25th-anniversary tour.
Mike Farragher
Feb 03, 2023
Shillelagh Law chats with Mike Farragher on the TAYSHT podcast.
If you’re an Irish American, then Shilelagh Law is your story.
Your story, that is, if you’ve won All-Ireland championships, have a penchant for pizza and late-night White Castle runs, and amassed a rabid following of fans up and down the Northeast corridor!
Shilelagh Law was born out of the close-knit Irish American neighborhoods of Yonkers and The Bronx. After a few years of wandering around after graduating college, Terence Brennan, Richard Popovic, and Stephen Gardner re-connected over their mutual love of old Irish songs.
When a heavily distorted version of “Wild Rover” found its way onto their punk and hardcore set list, Terence soon picked up the bodhrán, and a new direction was born. The fast and rowdy liberties they took with old Irish standards gave the songs new life and dragged them kicking and screaming into the light of a new day.
Denis McCarthy joined Shilelagh Law after hearing about them from his brother Kevin and seeing a flyer in a men’s room. He wisely tore the flyer down to remove any other fiddling competitors, not that he needed to. Denny won multiple All-Ireland championships in a number of categories.
“It came at a perfect time in his life,” Kevin McCarthy reveals on the latest TAYSHT episode. “After our father died, he kinda walked away from music for a while, and this brought him back.”
Kevin, a masterful piano accordion in his own right, soon joined the band, and a legendary lineup was formed.
To immerse oneself in a conversation with this band is to immerse oneself in a high school locker room, where verbal towel snapping and chops busting is the primary mode of communication. What lurks beneath, however, is a tight musical brotherhood and an incendiary jam band chemistry when they hit the stage.
They’ve become a regular at Citi Field for the New York Mets Irish Heritage night, and have seen their music featured in movies (including one I made), a Honda web commercial, and, most recently, the CBS cop drama “Blue Bloods.
I caught up with the band before their latest barnstorming tour to celebrate 25 years together. Popovic has recently unearthed old diaries, planners, and videotapes from the early days, and they reveal on the TAYSHT podcast that there is a loose plan to drop that on their fans throughout this anniversary year.
I’m here for it!