It's great that the traditional songs sung by THKs are now reaching and affecting a new audience.
Most children in Ireland heard these songs from infancy, in the family home, or even on the radio.
Those born since the 60s and 70s probably heard them from the "Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem" and "The Fureys and Davy Arthur".
Finbarr and Martin heard them up closer than most - it was their Daddies and uncles making the music. Brian and Darren would have heard them too.
The emergence of the High Kings had me dusting off my old vinyl and CDs,as I've said before.
In fact the success of THK could cause a resurgence of interest in the original recordings, just to compare them.
If you look at the track lists on a lot of the early CDs, especially the Fureys, you will find many old English, Scottish and American songs too. Not unusual to see "Tennessee Waltz" and "Goodnight Irene" in there. They were, after all, trans-Atlantic Groups.
Today of course, David's arrangements and technical advances in music reproduction make the music come alive like never before.
But to me (call me a sentimental old fool) hearing the raw voices and primitive recording has a lot of charm, too.
When I first heard some of the more traditional songs, they were unaccompanied, sung in a living room or pub, by untrained singers in what is now called sean-nós style
So when I heard the Clancys and the Fureys, they had taken the old songs to a new level and it was wonderful to hear them.
Now along come their kids and raise the bar again!
The Fureys and Davy Arthur in the 70s, Martin's Dad Finbar is sitting with the pipes:
here's Paddy, Tom and Liam Clancy with Tommy Makem 2nd from left:
All four Clancy Brothers: