The first of the full-time professional Celtic bands to arise on the international scene - - now occupy a unique position of respect in the world of traditional music. They have completed fifty-one tours of the USA and recently celebrated their 30th anniversary as a band.
Since the first tour in 1967 the Boys have travelled extensively in their mission to gain traditional music a wider audience and respect. Their warm and vital performances have won them friends from the village halls of Scotland to international concert and festival stages. The Boys have established a reputation for technical brilliance and integrity in their performance of Irish and Scottish music. A ready wit and sense of fun enliven their onstage performance while their original arrangements and dynamic interactions between the two major strands of the Celtic tradition keep the music always bright and fresh.
Northumberland born DAVE RICHARDSON has been an integral part of the group since early in the seventies when he left behind him for ever research studies in molecular evolution. His steady, sympathetic playing on mandoline, cittern, English concertina, and lately the button accordion, provides a strong platform for the soloists and has made a significant contribution to the characteristic sound of the Boys.
BRENDAN BEGLEY, a genial giant from the Dingle peninsula in Kerry, is a well-known and accomplished performer of Irish traditional music on the accordion. He has toured extensively at home and in Estonia, Finland, France and the USA. His previous work with the Boys includes an extended tour of the USA in 1989, concerts at the Edinburgh Festival and a special concert in Sweden in 1997 to celebrate the Boys 30th anniversary. He then began fully integrated work with the band on their autumn tours in the UK and USA in 1997.
CATHAL McCONNELL, a founder-member of the band, is one of the best flute and whistle players in the Irish tradition and a greatly respected singer. His naturally relaxed and friendly stage presence allied to an air of bespectacled confusion endears him to audiences everywhere. Hailing from County Fermanagh, an area rich in musicians, Cathal can trace the flute back through four generations in his family. By the time he was eleven years old he was playing the whistle, encouraged by his father and local teacher Peter Flannagan. At fifteen he took up the flute and in 1962, aged eighteen, became the all-Ireland champion on both instruments. Five years later he was touring with the newly formed Boys of the Lough.
A native of Lerwick, Shetland, KEVIN HENDERSON grew up surrounded by the rich fiddle traditions of Shetland and has become a most able performer on the instrument. Kevin started playing the fiddle around 1985, at the age of nine. He initially took lessons privately for several months from Trevor Hunter, who himself had studied under the great Tom Anderson, and classical violinist Yehudi Menuhin. Then, through the school system in Lerwick, Kevin came under the tutelage of master fiddler Willie Hunter. Rapid progress was evidenced when at age twelve he won “Young Fiddler of the Year” in 1988. He continued as a prize-winner in this Shetland event for some years after this.
From near Fort William in the western Highlands of Scotland, MALCOLM STITT who plays guitar and bouzouki is part of the rising movement of very able younger musicians emerging from there, stamping their own mark on traditions well learned from the old masters of fiddle, pipes and song. He is also known for is work with popular Scots trad bands Deaf Shepherd and Keep it Up.
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