Mary Bergin – Feadóga Stáin - Traditional Irish Music On The Tin Whistle (CD)

Released on Gael Linn in 1979, this is the record that put the tin whistle on equal footing with the pipes and fiddle in Irish traditional music. Mary Bergin's long awaited debut is largely a trio affair, with De Dannan's Alec Finn on bouzouki and mandocello and Johnny 'Ringo' McDonagh on bodhrán and bones giving her playing plenty of room to breathe.

And what playing it is. Working across six different whistles from low G to high F, Bergin moves through reels, jigs, polkas, hornpipes and slow airs with a fluency and precision that placed her in the lineage of Michael Coleman, Patsy Touhey and Willie Clancy. The unaccompanied slow air Liam Ó Raghallaigh is a masterclass in phrasing, while sets like The Lady on the Island and Sean Reid's / The Drunken Landlady show why this remains the benchmark whistle recording nearly fifty years on. Still the first album any aspiring whistle player is handed.