Celtic Dreamland

Price: €13.50

This is my second discovery from myself and Heather’s weaning week. I normally shy away from anything with the word “celtic” in it. Not that I’ve got anything against Irish music – I could sing you ballads all night long (or could have once, fatherhood hasn’t been kind to my memory) – but “celtic” makes me think of … well, druids and healing crystals. And Enya. So I was half expecting New Age renditions of Danny Boy, but happily I got almost the exact opposite – honest-to-goodness performances of some really top-notch Irish/Scottish music I had (mostly) never heard before. The tunes are not strictly lullabies, but they – songs and traditional dancing music both – are all quiet and soothing and I guess babies don’t care about strict definitions one way or the other.

My favourite tune is called “Goodnight and joy”  – it seems to be a variation on the well-known “The Parting Glass” and it makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck every time I hear it. The other highlight is a jig called “The Dove’s Return” played on harp which is … well, I hesitate to use the word “magical” because the word is almost as suspect as “celtic”, but really it is magical – plus it’s got pretty much the perfect rocking-to-sleep tempo and rhythm and on a normal night it’s rare that Heather makes it to the end awake.

Highlights aside, this is consistently good all the way through and I’d recommend it to anyone. Like Asian Dreamland it performed well in rigorous field-testing, and it has the added benefit, on account of the music being so good, of being inclined to distract you from the fact that you’ve been pacing the floor half the night and have to go work in 3 hours. A sanity saver.