Captain Mackey's
Goatskin & String Band
Máirtín de Cógáin and Jimmy Crowley have given their whole lives to the promulgation and nurture of the ballad. Both men hail from the rebel county of Cork in Ireland and now reside in America. Máirtín and Jimmy proudly speak the Irish language and have won degrees in the subject from the University of Ireland.
Máirtín is a founding member of The Fuchsia Band who have taken many a festival by storm in America. A consummate story-teller, actor, singer and musician, he can be seen and heard in the hit movie, The Wind that Shakes the Barley about the Irish War of Independence and subsequent Civil War.
Jimmy Crowley is reckoned to be something of a legend in Irish music from his earlier work with Stokers Lodge, described by Micheál Ó Súilleabháin as "an icon in Irish music". He has recorded ten albums of music, is a committed songwriter and a song collector; and has found in Máirtín an able partner and counterfoil for the respect and commitment they both have for all branches of the song tradition from the bardic, Gaelic songs to the present day revival. Captain Mackey's Goatskin and Stringband takes its name from a legendary Irish-American Fenian and a legendary Cork folk band from the sixties, Paddy's Goatskin and Stringband, which had a seminal effect on Jimmy's musical life.