The Chieftains “San Patricio”
The latest release from The Chieftains, “San Patricio,” has been topping the Billboard Latin Album Chart for weeks now. The album pays tribute to San Patricious, “the ill-fated battalion of mostly Irish soldiers who abandoned the US army during the Mexican-American War of 1846-48 and crossed the border to fight alongside the Mexicans.”
An Irish group topping the Latin charts? Odd, yes, but The Chieftains tell a beautiful story that delivers Mexican and Irish folk as one. Paddy Moloney spent two years creating the album that was 30 years in the making.
“I had a good friend of mine from Trinity College in Dublin. He was doing a lot of research on the American Civil War and all the Irish that fought the war. And this man, John Riley, he was drafted the minute he got off the plank and told to join the Union Army. And one of the things he wasn’t too happy about was having to go shoot Catholic Mexicans. And he also saw the injustice of the whole war. And we had the same situation back in Ireland. With the neighbors who came to visit and forgot to go back. So, it was a different face, different region, but similar story (Billboard).”
For an exhilarating trip back in time, let yourself get lost in the sounds of “San Patricio.” The Chieftains have just wrapped up their tour dates for 2010, so keep checking back for more Chieftain news.
Friday, April 23, 2010 at 6:09 pm by elizabeth
Tags: the chieftains, the chieftains news, the chieftains san patricio, the chieftains tickets, the chieftains tour dates
