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Local singer and musician, Ron Kavana, who has released his latest album – Forgotten People.

Ron Kavana, local singer and musician, has released his latest album – Forgotten People. Featuring a host of contributing artists, the CD charts the stories of Irish immigrants who left these shores for Canada throughout the 19th century.

Forgotten People had its initial, glowingly reviewed launch at Canada’s top folk festival in Edmonton, Alberta, in August. It was released in Ireland last week and was officially launched here by Ron (vocals, guitar, bouzouki) together with Anne Armstrong (vocals, percussion) and award-winning instrumentalists, Siobhan Peoples (fiddle) and Blackie O’Connell (uileann pipes) on Sunday, October 5 in the Crane Lane Theatre, Cork, as part of the 2014 Cork Folk Festival.

This is the follow-up to Ron’s award-winning book and 4 CD box-set, Irish Ways: The Story of Ireland in Song, Music and Poetry, which spent many months in both HMV’s Irish and British Top 10 Album Charts as well as The Celtic Note stores’ No 1 spot as Dublin’s top seller.

“During the peak period of emigration in Irish history: 1845-’50 and the following decades of the 19th century, some four and a half million men, women and children fled cruel and unjust British rule in their homeland in hope of a better life elsewhere. Some of their stories are told on this CD,” Mr Kavana said in a statement to The Avondhu.

“Canadian historians now acknowledge that the dominant influence on Canadian culture – previously believed to be ‘British’ – is at least equally Irish. As Ireland was still under British rule in the 19th century, the majority (over 60%) of immigrants arriving in Canada during this peak period of immigration were classified as ‘British’ although they ere actually Irish and the culture they carried with them was most definitely Irish not British.”

These Irish emigrants have come to be known as ‘Forgotten People’, and through this album some of their stories are told, in songs of County Cork, Liverpool and Canada. Mr Kavana has received international acclaim for his material, described by the Sydney Morning Herald as ‘a great singer, a gifted songwriter, and … a fine historian’, and as ‘the genius of Irish Music’ by Living Tradition.

For more information on Forgotten People, see www.aliasronkavana.com.

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