It is fantastic to have both the Belfast & Dublin concerts together on one DVD with the live concert dead time (pardon the pun) between selections minimized. It is hard to imagine, from the robust and polished (virtually operatic, with the exception of John McDermott, whose presentation is much more suited to popular song than to opera or lieder), that in addition to the many traditional Irish songs, some of these are modern popular ballads. For example, I find Finbar Wright's rendition of the Isle of Inisfree vastly superior to (certainly much more classically styled than) the original version actually in the movie from which it was taken (The Quiet Man). This, of course, is testimony not only to the skill and training that went into developing these voices, but also to the skill and stylistic presentation of the arranger/conductor (Frank McNamara).

This is definitely a five-star production. I have to rate it four stars, however, only because the more I listened, the more I wished that the producers of the DVD (not the concerts) had included one or both of these two things: 1) a printed insert containing the poets' and/or composers' names, the stories behind the poetry, or at least the lyrics themselves or 2) the lyrics as optional subtitles on the DVD itself. I found myself searching the Internet for the lyrics to and stories behind almost all the selections. The interviews in the bonus material are a good start, but this is Irish music, after all, and every poem has a story that demands an emotional response in its own right, even setting aside the superb performances.