These are seven selected excerpts from a documentary film featuring fourteen of Ireland's top female musicians.

October, 2000: After a quick visit to my own home area, in West Cork, Ben and I met up with our Dublin-based film crew. We set out to film conversations with Ireland's most celebrated women musicians, representing a cross-section of the many streams of Irish music.

I should add that full transcriptions of in-depth interviews with over 65 Celtic women musicians, from all over the Celtic world, can be read in my book Celtic Women in Music, published by Quarry Music Books (1999).

These talented women present us with an intimate experience of the inner workings of Celtic culture in Ireland. Music can bring great comfort when we feel wrapped in the warmth, intelligence and skill of talented artists. Each time our attention is captured by good musicians we make new discoveries about the spirit of humanity, in the poetry of their songs and in their new combinations of rhythms and melodies.