The Housekeepers

This album shines a light on the music and lives of five remarkable early 20th Century Irish Traditional Musicians: Ella Mae O’Dwyer, Nora Hurley, Aggie Whyte, Ellen Galvin and Mollie Myers Murphy. With the exception of a small number who recorded commercially, female musicians of previous generations tend to be remembered as peripheral figures in the tradition. This isn’t a true reflection of their musicality, instrumental proficiency, or the esteem in which their contemporaries held them. In the course of this project, we delved into the lives of these women and discovered how they occupied a place at the heart of traditional music communities.