Oh my goodness, Dan, now all I want to do is go visit Ireland. At least in Dublin I'll be able to find kosher groceries to keep me going while touring. I have no Jewish roots in Ireland; my Irish ancestors were Catholic. But the second link especially made me very curious to see Jewish life in Ireland and visit the sites.
The writeup on Shalom Ireland made me want to order the CD, so I think I will! There is a fascination with Celtic music here; several bands exist, both folkloric and modern, who perform Irish or Irish/Jewish fusion music regularly. And klezmer does meld somehow with the eerie melancholy so present in much of Celtic music. There is also a klezmer band whose musicians are Dutch and entirely non-Jewish: their name is (predictably) The Goyim. The nothern hilltop town of Tsfat, where I lived for five years, hosts a yearly klezmer festival and The Goyim were guest performers there not too long ago. (But the band I've always liked best was an all-woman quintet called Bnot Chava - the Daughters of Eve - who did a rocking, feminist verson of "If I Were a Rich Man.")
Miriam