Ronan Browne - Background

Background

Ronan was born in Dublin in 1965 into a very strong musical background. His grandmother Delia Murphy was renowned for recording and popularising many Irish songs in the 1930s and 1940s such as "If I Were A Blackbird", 'The Spinning Wheel', and Three Lovely Lassies From Bannion'. Delia, the wife of Dr. T.J. Kiernan, Irish Ambassador to the Vatican, Australia, Germany, America and Canada, brought Irish musical culture to audiences throughout the world.

Musicians such as Séamus Ennis, Willie Clancy and Denis Murphy were regular visitors to Ronan’s family home over the years. He began playing the pipes at the age of seven and was quickly taken under the various wings of the old masters, his main influences being pipers Willie Clancy, Johnny Doran and Séamus Ennis, whilst fiddlers Denis Murphy and Tommy Potts also played a strong role in forming his early style.

Ronan has toured extensively in Europe and in the USA, as well as playing in Russia, India, Australia, Israel, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Japan. He gives master classes throughout the world.

He has been involved in over 75 album recordings since his first venture into the studio in 1982 and has collaborated with many of the top artists playing traditional Irish music, classical, pop, jazz and Country. These include people such as Anúna, Donal Lunny, Finbar Wright, Alan Stivell, The Indigo Girls, Tommy Hayes, Sean Tyrrell, Bill Whelan, Elvis Costello, Nightnoise, Michael Kamen, Paul Brady, Bill Laswell, Sinéad O'Connor, Peter Gabriel and Deep Forest.

After releasing the easy-listening album Celtic Moods in 1997, Ronan released a solo traditional CD The Wynd You Know in 2001, with Claddagh Records. 2005 saw the release of a third solo CD Salute to the Brave, mostly of his own modern compositions.