The Chieftains: 50 years of avoiding politics and religion

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In a career that overlapped with the worst of Ireland’s “Troubles,” the Chieftains were also uncompromising in their refusal to get drawn into Catholic-Protestant conflict. “I always kept away from politics and religion,” bandleader Paddy Moloney says. “As a result we were probably the only group of our kind to play a mixed audience in Belfast. One of the senior unionist guys was one of our biggest fans and when we did our 25 years celebration he came down and spoke. He said this and that, but that music is music.”

Metropolis, Nov 5, 2012

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