Richie Piggott

Irish Music Historian & Author

For the past twelve years, Richie has been researching and collecting the legacies of traditional musicians of the Irish diaspora in Chicago. He has now written and published a book, entitled Cry of a People Gone, covering Irish musicians in Chicago from 1920-2020.

Cry of a People Gone

Order your copy today!

Piggott augments and extends O'Neill's documentation into the 21st century... an impressive amount of information... a rich, detailed view of the lives of people who came from Ireland and made a life in Chicago... Piggott's work is sure to become a classic in Irish musical history and preserves the legacy of those who loved, collected and played Irish music.
– Irish Edition (Nov. 2022)

Latest News - Nov 2025

Come Over the Mountain Road
Exploring Irish traditional music & musicians of
South Sligo / East Mayo with James Murray

Over the last year I visited James Murray on three separate occasions. This was prompted in part by my interest in documenting, preserving and openly sharing the history of our traditional music, song and storytelling and in part when I learnt of James’ willingness to share his lifetime of memories playing Irish music. James has been a fiddle & flute player for over 70 years and during that time he has collected the history of Irish music of his own and many previous generations of musicians in the South Sligo & East Mayo region of Ireland.

I have just published Part 2 of my meetings with James, which I hope you will enjoy.

Click here for Part 2

Click here for Part 1

Michael Daly | Worthing, West Sussex, 1963

A flute player born at Altagowlan, Arigna, Co. Roscommon in March 1913, and the son of Tom Daly, a farmer, and his wife Kate Gaffney, Michael and Eleanor Kane Neary of Chicago often exchanged tape recordings on Irish music and this is an example of one such recording. It was made by Michael in 1963 and sent to Eleanor to share with her husband Jimmy and the Irish musicians in Chicago whom Michael knew well, including Joe Shannon, Johnny McGreevy, Kevin Henry and Frank Thornton.

Click here to listen

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