St Patrick's Day is just a couple weeks away. That's when I start thinking about promoting Celtic music with free Celtic MP3s. I've been doing that for about fourteen years now. I think it's safe to say I created a Celtic music empire online. I didn't start calling myself The Celtfather. That title was given to me by people like you who realized just how much I was doing.
In fact, one of my oldest webpages is called Celtic Songs & Folk Music Downloads. For about a decade that webpage has been the home of my Celtic music downloads.
Before I jump into a huge list of websites… I want you to hit play. Give some of my music a listen right now.
Enjoying it? Good, let's get started.
Free Celtic MP3s from the Celtic Music Magazine
When I started the Celtic Music Magazine in December 2000, it was called the Celtic Muse. It was hosted by YahooGroups. Every week, I featured awesome Celtic MP3s I found on MP3.com. The ezine was a HUGE success. Before I knew it, I had 20,000 subscribers. It's by far one the largest newsletter dedicated to Celtic music in the world. And it also started with free Celtic MP3s.
MP3.com went under a few years later, but my mission was “changing the way you hear Celtic music.” Over the next decade the ‘zine continued to do just that. I started featuring reviews, some interviews, spotlights, and tons more. When it comes to free Celtic MP3s, there is no greater website. In fact, I even created a podcast to more easily distribute the free Celtic MP3s that are submitted to the magazine. You can download 80 MP3s right now from some of the best indie Celtic bands online.
If that's not enough, every year since 2005, I have published an article in the Celtic Music Magazine at St Patrick's Day called 17 Free Celtic Music Downloads for St. Patrick's Day. Can you believe that this is the 10th year of that article? Wow! Pretty incredible.
This year will be no exception. In fact, I'm working on that article right now. So subscribe to the newsletter to be notified about this free Celtic music.
How You Can Celebrate St. Patrick's Day All Year Long with the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast
In 2005, I caught wind of a growing internet phenomena called podcasts. They were just gaining traction. So in July, I started the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast. It began as a monthly, hour-long radio show of Irish and Celtic music. It quickly caught the eye of the net and in 2006, it was first featured by iTunes on St. Patrick's Day.
Nearly ten years later, the show is still going and still growing. Thousands of people subscribe to my feed. Tens of thousands of shows are downloaded every month. It is the #1 resource for anyone wanting to hear new, up and coming Celtic musicians and groups. It's popularity even earned me the name “The Celtfather”. The show surpassed my expectations and became even bigger than the Celtic Music Magazine.
There are now over 150 episodes and the show has been downloaded over TEN MILLION times!
If you want to see who's hot in Celtic music around the globe, this is the #1 resource.
Over the past year, I have even more seamlessly merged the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast and Celtic Music Magazine together. So when you subscribe up above, you can also gain quick access to the podcast as well.
Or just subscribed through the podcast feeds:
Is There Really a Website of Free Irish Music?
Of course there is. Free Irish Music is one of my most-popular websites during St. Patrick's month. I started and stopped this website several years ago. It used to be based on the Celtic Music Magazine content. So all of the free Irish music downloads are from the Celtic Music Magazine from 2009 and earlier. However, since that music is not readily accessible unless you follow your links far back, it's kind of a nice resource to have.
I do think it might be kinda cool to update the site with new links and downloads, but I haven't yet figured out what form that should take. If you have any thoughts on how I can make it stand out and be more awesomely cool with lots of Free Irish music content, then let me know.
St Patrick's Day Free Music Downloads
I was just glancing at an old article I wrote called “19 Celtic Music Websites with Free Music Downloads“. I wrote it long before there free St Patrick's Day music was readily available. Now, it seems, you can find free Celtic music everywhere if you look for it, especially around St. Patrick's Day.
In my effort to corner certain markets, I created a website called St. Patrick's Day Music Party. This is mostly an informational site. You'll find a little St. Patrick's Day history, some gifts, CDs, podcasts and of course lots of St. Patrick's Day Free Music Downloads.
That page in particular focuses on my music from 2010 and earlier. Many of the links come from my SoundClick page, but I haven't updated that page in a few years. I moved on quite a bit. But you can still download a bunch of free Celtic MP3s.
Internet St Patrick's Day Music Festival
Incidentally, I just setup a new page for the Internet St. Patrick's Day Festival. This is a cool idea I've been brainstorming for a couple years now. The idea is to offer live concerts of Celtic music during the week up to St. Patrick's Day. I finally figured out how to implement this with my own music this year.
And so, for the next four days (the first day ended today), you can head over there and find links to my Google Events where I am kicking off the first annual Internet St. Patrick's Day Festival. I hope to see it grow in the years to come.
If you know of any Celtic musicians who are using YouTube a lot for shows, let me know. I'd love to connect with them and get them added to the concert schedule.
St Patrick's Day Pub Songs
The Irish & Celtic Music Podcast was not the first podcast I ever created. Nor was it the second. Nor was it the third. The third was the Pub Songs Podcast. This show had one helluva run. It began a few days before the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast and laid the groundwork for what would evolve into an educational show into a show promoting me, my music, and the music and stuff I love. Now look at it. I just released the 135th episode of the show.
I'm planning about five more shows before the podcast officially podfades away. I needed to make room for new projects including a lot more time doing live YouTube shows. In fact, it's the Pub Songs Podcat that launched the Internet St. Patrick's Day Festival.
I've done quite a few live shows over the years. I just released a flashback blog: 19 Best St Patrick’s Day Pub Songs Podcasts. There's a lot of great live shows over the years.
Live St Patrick's Day Music on YouTube
If you really want to soak in my St. Patrick's Day shows, then make sure you subscribe to my channel on YouTube. I'm planning a LOT of shows from St. Patrick's Day and beyond. I also post episodes of the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast and I have some special features coming soon. You can check out my St. Patrick's Day Music Playlist here. It is extremely popular. Or my Celtic Music Radio Playlist which features a lot of the shows I offer. I know. You can't download those (or at least I don't know how to), but it's still worth mentioning.
St Patrick's Day Plague
Over Christmas, my friend Rion of Pandora Celtica emailed me about a cool idea he had to create an album of Celtic music that we could share with the world. It was a great hit and even crashed a few servers.
Pandora Celtic is back with a brand new compilation just in time for St. Patrick's Day:
Hello Lads and Lassies, and a happy Saint Patrick’s Day to you!
As you know, we love our fans, and while we don’t have a way to share a pint with all of you during this fine holiday, we can share music! Follow the link below to get to a compilation of free music that includes an entry from us as well as 50 plus other artists from all over the world.
Download it all, discover new music and musicians, and then, share the link with your social circle, as you likely don’t have the time for a pint with all of them. Also feel free to send it off to the folks who play Celtic music on your favorite stations or who book Celtic bands at your local events.
Spread it like a bonnie St Patrick’s day plague!
I don't know how long this link will last. So make sure you head in there and download all of the great music right now!
Listen and Learn Irish Songs
One of the coolest resources I ever started was my Irish Song Lyrics website. It began as Celtic Lyrics with the Brobdingnagian Bards page, but grew immensely.
I started this page in a time when Celtic lyrics were not readily available online. Finding chords for Irish song lyrics was not easy. And if you wanted to hear how the song sounded… just give up!
Thus was born Irish-Song-Lyrics.com. The website features Irish and Celtic lyrics, chords, and an MP3 for you to listen and download the music. It was designed to work with my weird brain on how I learn music. I can barely read sheet music. I prefer learning by ear. I created this website for the countless people online who are just like me!
My Personal Celtic Music Downloads Projects
In addition to all of my general resource websites, I have numerous bands and sites dedicated to my personal Celtic music downloads.
My Pet Project – Irish Drinking Songs for Cat Lovers
Irish Drinking Songs for Cat Lovers is an album series I started in 2005. It has since become one of best-selling albums. As I am committed to free music downloads, I also offer a few cat music mp3s on my website. It's like catnip for the Celtic and cat music lover.
My Most Up-to-Date Downloads
If you ever want to hear and download my latest music, then you should join me on Reverbnation. You can download several MP3s straight from the website. When you join my mailing list, you can download even MORE Celtic MP3s. Plus, as a subscriber you get frequent updates to all my music and news. And it's all for free.
Brobdingnagian Bards Free Celtic MP3s
Many of the most-popular songs of the Brobdingnagian Bards are free to download on the Bards website. It looks like I stopped updating that webpage in about 2005, but that still means a bunch of music. And the Brobdingnagian Bards also have a podcast. It's not updated all that often, but it's still worth checking out for timeless fun.
Making Your Free Celtic Music Search Easier with a Free Celtic Music CD
Rather than make you search the net for music to download, I decided to make your life a little easier. I always offer a free album. Or rather a pay what you want album. Right now, the album is called Irish Songs for New Orleans. It's a compilation that features many of my most-popular songs from my albums in 2009 and 2010.
There are 12 tracks on the album. And they are all yours at no cost to you, UNLESS you want to give me a wee bit. You are welcome to download the album for free, or you can make a donation to show how much you appreciate all of the free music I offer.
If that's not enough, you can also download my Best of the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast compilation… again, for free. This album features 17 tracks by 17 different Celtic bands and musicians. Each artist was voted one of the best bands in my Irish & Celtic Music Podcast.
Like I said, quick and easy.
The Ultimate Website for Free Celtic Music Downloads–Song Henge
I started Song Henge as the fan club of the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast. The goal was to offer fans a way to give back for all the time I spend working on this show. It eventually evolved into my fan club site as well. From the very beginning, my goal was to help promote indie Celtic bands by offering free Celtic music downloads.
In fact, every month, subscribers get an email from me featuring about 15 Celtic MP3s by many of the bands who are on the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast. It's sort of like the Celtic Music Magazine podcast above, but with more music so you can really get an idea about what these bands are all about.
Song Henge is now the ultimate guide to indie Celtic music. Whether you support my music or not, it's a great way to learn more about Celtic musicians around the world, and not just the over-talked ones with publicists, but the indies that you would never hear about if it weren't for the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast.
Conclusion
As you can see, I have a LOT of free St Patrick's Day MP3s that you can enjoy. If you scour my websites, you will find even more MP3s that I forgot to mention today. Yes, these are just the most-popular sites.
But as I tell people who listen to the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast. It's just not about getting free music. We Celtic musicians need your financial support as much as we need your help promoting our music.
So I want to encourage you to download as much free music as you can. But once you're done. Once you've listened. Then buy an album and support the artists who make these downloads happen.
Thank you for all your generous support of MY music. Slainte!
How a sense of humor, helping others, a little education,
and how you can change the world Celtic music!
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