A Trek Through All of Horslips's Albums, Part One: Introduction.

On Christmas Day of 1995 (I think), I received a gift of a "best hits" compilation by the Irish band Horslips. I'd never even heard of this band (though like the rest of the country, I was well-familiar with the "Put 'Em Under Pressure" World Cup '90 anthem, based on their signature song "Dearg Doom").

To put it as succinctly as possible: Horslips were an Irish rock group who were active from 1970 to 1980. They fused traditional Irish music with rock music, as well as playing the straight version of both forms. They were pioneers in the fusion of rock and Irish trad, which is sometimes called Celtic Rock, and sometimes-- though not nearly often enough, for my liking-- "Sham Rock".

I've long wondered what gave Santa the idea of giving me this gift, and who Santa was on this occasion. My father pretty much disapproved of all popular music after Frank Sinatra, and criticized me for listening to rock music. (He was probably right, even though I still listen to it.) But he was proud of his Irishness to a sometimes comical degree, so Horslips's fusion of traditional music and rock might have appealed to him. At the same time, he had so little interest in popular music that I'd be surprised if he even knew who Horslips were. Maybe it was a near-random selection, serendipity at work. Maybe some other member of my family was involved. Who knows?

Anyway, it was an incredibly fortunate choice. I loved Horslips straight away. I listened to the album over and over and over, and when I had my own money I bought a few Horslips albums myself. (Although mostly just more compilations, since this all that was available. I think The Book of Invasions was the only actual album I could find.)

The particular collection I got that Christmas has long been discontinued, since Horslips were at this point in a dispute with their label, and they didn't approve of the release. In spite of this, it was a very good production, both in selection and presentation. The sleeve even had a comprehensive history of the band. (To be honest, the band-approved collections which I bought in later years weren't nearly as good.)

Now, listening to Horslips brings me back to my late teens, but I don't just listen to them out of nostalgia. If it was just nostalgia, I wouldn't have liked them in the first place.

Not only did Horslips draw on Irish traditional and folk music, they also drew on Irish mythology, history and literature for their song subjects. For instance, two of their albums are based on Irish sagas, The Táin and The Book of Invasions.

I've listened to Horslips ever since. I stopped listening to them briefly when they complained about the use of one of their songs at the Irexit conference of 2018, calling the attendees "saddos", and boasting that Horslips "stood for a hopeful, outward looking, inclusive vision of Ireland". (Surely there is a limit to how inclusive you can get before you lose all your distinctiveness; surely you need to be looking out of something if you're to be "outward-looking"?) But I got over that.

A couple of years before that, I actually saw the drummer Eamon Carr in a hospital waiting room. (I knew of him from his column in the Evening Herald long before I'd heard of the band.) I'm not the sort of person to bother celebrities (major or minor), and I don't think he would have been too keen to be bothered there in any case. 

Sadly, their guitarist Johnny Fean died last year. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam. The band, who'd had a few brief reformations since 1980, announced in 2022 that they were definitively retired.

Despite my love of Horslips, I don't know all their songs by any means. I have a terrible, terrible habit of listening to my favourite songs over and over and over again, without expanding my musical horizons at all-- even when it comes to bands or artists I already like. It's a sort of intellectual or aesthetic sloth that I deplore in myself and struggle to overcome, an excessive reliance on the tried and tested over the unknown.

So, since everything is on YouTube today, I've decided to listen my way through all of Horslips's studio albums, and write my personal reactions to each.

I'm pretty clueless when it comes to musical knowledge, or describing music, or musical theory, or anything like that. So if any fan of Horslips comes across these posts (or, God forbid, any of the band members themselves), I hope they'll be indulgent and not take offence at any of my opinions. (In fact, I'm going to repeat this disclaimer with every instalment.)

Next up will be a post on their first album, Happy to Meet-- Sorry to Part.