- John Mahon
- From Ireland
- Street musician
- Music by John Mahon
My name is John Mahon.
I’m a singer, musician, guitarist. I’ve been playing for about 20 years now.
I’m a street musician, actually. I’ve been playing in bars around Dublin, I play in Irish dance shows as well, in the Belvedere and the Arlington, and I also do weddings.
I was more late getting into Irish traditional music, then I started playing fingerstyle guitar, and then I went to college and I started playing jazz as well, and then somewhere along the way, I started getting into traditional music. I heard, obviously, or I might have heard somebody playing the guitar with the music up the road there, seeing a fella playing the guitar, and he was, like, accompanying Irish music, right. When I heard this, it blew my mind, so I was like, that’s cool. And then I started playing, like, fingerstyle arrangements on the guitar of Irish tunes.
And then I got, someone saw me on Instagram, and he asked me to go on tour in America with a dance show. I really had to delve into the music because all the people who were playing it were pure Irish traditional musicians, whereas I wasn’t. So I was a little bit out of my comfort zone, but I learned a lot in two months.
Traditional music in the town, it’s a bit of a mixture. Like, there’s a lot of great musicians that are coming here and playing, and that’s given me an opportunity to play with them and get that vibe, you know? So that’s really good. If I’m playing in pubs with Kevin or whatever, tourists are often very happy when they hear us playing because we play mainly traditional music, which is what they’re coming here to hear, really.
I love playing music, always have, always will. Singing is more of a new thing to me, and I’m definitely a better musician than I am a singer. It’s good being back in the streets now because now I can just play the guitar and the dancer can do his thing.
My hopes for the future of Irish traditional music continue to grow and people continue to play. The young people continue to take interest and keep it alive. It’s getting more popular with young people these days, so I think it’s looking good.
