Bodhran

The Dubliners have never had anyone on bodhran, but since I don't play anything which involves moving up and down a musical stave it's my folk instrument of choice. It's enjoying a bit of a musical renaissance at the moment; there's a young female rapper called MissElaneous who does a bit of bodhran-beating, and when we were in Dundrum the marketing manager told me about a young rapper/bodhranist called Jim McConnell that I finally tracked down. Sadly he died a couple of years ago, but this brilliant footage remains:



RIP MC Lunitic, as he is also known.

That's how you play the thing. Quite how this old fellow I saw in Dublin playing on Grafton Street gets away with his double-beater flat playing style is a mystery.