1. Music plays a great role in Ireland and many people play an instrument. In Pubs, there is live-music, either from paid musicians or also from the people themselves. Only the traditional Irish Folk is not represented, all music directions are equal. The harp is in Ireland very popular, after all as its national emblem appearing on governments, coins and flags.
1.1 Ireland’s most important musical achievements are the folksong and middle ages music. The oldest representations of Irish instruments are reliefs on stone crosses of the 8th and 9th centuries, whose presence perhaps explains why the harp became Ireland’s national instrument and heraldic symbol.
Music is said to have been first brought to Ireland by the Tuatha De Danann in approximately 1600 B.C. and the first reference to music in Ireland was made by the great geographer, Hecataeus of Miletus.

2. The harp is one of the oldest instruments. In Europe harps made their first appearance in Ireland, in which harp are still used as heraldic symbol. Whether the instruments represented on Irish stone crosses of the 9th and 10th centuries were harps or lyres is still a matter of the scholars.

3. Folk music is the product of a musical tradition that has been evolved through the process of oral transmission. In Ireland, a differentiation is made between `traditional´ and `folk´ music. Folk music has a wider and sometimes an unfriendly interpretation. It can refer to time songs with guitar accompaniment. Traditional music includes two categories: instrumental music, which is mostly dance music and the song tradition, which is mostly the solo singing.
3.1 Folksongs exist in every part the world. Western Folksongs developed together with poems, which deal with the daily life: work songs, love songs, cradlesongs, drinking songs, patriotic songs, dancing songs, mourning songs, narrative and epic songs, etc. Folksongs of different nations have certain characteristics, in order to represent general national human beings. However melody and rhythmic resembled each other with the Design of different nations. The similarity in some cases is surprising, but it indicates a general origin of such melodies. In this way, it was possible to define the age of certain folksongs. This point is of a special importance, because you cannot find such freedom of/in melody anywhere else. The most folksongs of western nations have a relatively new/young origin.

4. Irish dance and the music of Ireland are linked over the centuries. A combination of an instrument has provided the music for dancing during the centuries. Formerly the bagpipe was the most popular instrument, but today it is more general for some dancers being accompanied by an accordion, a fiddle or a piano.
4.1 Forget what you think to know about Irish dance – Trinity always brings new ideas to the old tradition. This Irish-American company has stolen the thunder from Irish by winning 13 world champion titles and five gold medals at the Irish Dance competitions held in Galway, Ireland. Trinity Irish Dance is very popular and the new dance of Ireland.