I love Ireland.

My affair with the country began long before I visited it. In the mid 1950s, I borrowed a book from Adelaide Public Library called The Turf-cutter's Donkey, by Patricia Lynch. Like most of her books, it is a fascinating mix of reality and magic, children and leprachauns, eccentric adults and fairies, grumpy animals and stirabout.

I went on to devour as many of her books as I could get hold of: The Turf-cutter's Donkey Goes Visiting, The Turf-cutter's Donkey Kicks Up His Heels, The Bookshop on the Quay, Brogeen Follows the Magic Tune, Brogeen and the Green Shoes, King of the Tinkers, The Grey Goose of Kilnevin and others.

So I was steeped in a romantic vision of Ireland of soft rain, bogs, donkey carts, turf fires, cobbled Dublin streets, whitewashed cottages.

When in 1976 I first sailed up the River Lee into Cork on the ferry from Swansea, the shore was yellow with gorse. There was indeed soft rain, lots of it, as we cycled around the west. There were peat bogs, turf fires, wonderful people, cottages galore, pubs and bars that welcomed me with open arms...

A few years later I lived and worked on the outskirts of Limerick, immersing myself in the music that seems to replace blood in the veins of many Irish. I played in half a dozen orchestras, and in the Bob Madden Big Band and with whatever ensemble gathered by chance in a bar.

Since then I've been back to haunt the country a few times, and will return again no doubt.

IRISH ALBUM