Paddy comes from a Travelling family steeped in traditional music; both his father and grandfather were uilleann pipers, and his own flowing, open-fingered style of playing can be traced directly from the style of the great Travelling pipers. Paddy himself took up the pipes at age ten. In the mid-1970s The Bothy Band burst onto Ireland’s music scene and forever changed the face of Irish traditional music. Paddy was one of the band’s founding members and one of its driving forces. The virtuosity and ferocity of his playing led to his being described as “the Jimi Hendrix of the pipes”, and his style has continued to mature in the intervening years as he has pursued a solo career. Generally acknowledged as the most accomplished uilleann piper performing today, he is certainly one of the most brilliant musicians of his generation.