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Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh (born August 28, 1979) is a fiddler, born in Dublin, Ireland, who attended Trinity College Dublin, becoming a Scholar in Theoretical Physics (1999) and earning a First Class BA degree (as the top student of his class) in 2001. He is known for developing a drone-based fiddle style heavily influenced by the uilleann pipes and the music of Sliabh Luachra. Ó Raghallaigh spent several summers working part- and full-time in the Irish Traditional Music Archives in Dublin, opening up a wealth of old recordings which influenced his repertoire and style. Together with uilleann piper Mick O'Brien, he recorded Kitty Lie Over, named No.1 Traditional Album of 2003 by Earle Hitchner in the Irish Echo. He performs regularly with West Kerry accordion player Brendan Begley, and has collaborated many times with sean-nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird. He has also performed with Icelandic group Amiina, Sam Amidon, The Waterboys among others. He is a member of two contemporary traditional music groups: The Gloaming (with Martin Hayes, Iarla Ó Lionáird, Dennis Cahill and Thomas Bartlett) and This Is How We Fly (with Petter Berndalen, Nic Gareiss and Seán Mac Erlaine). He has also worked in theatre, having been commissioned by the Abbey Theatre to write music, and works regularly with Gare St Lazare Players. He contributed music to the 2015 movie Brooklyn (film), a set of reels recorded especially for the purpose with Mayo accordion player Fiachna Ó Mongáin.

As well as playing on violin and Hardanger fiddle, Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh plays an instrument made by Norwegian luthier Salve Hakedal, a fiddle with five bowed strings and five sympathetic strings, a cross between a Hardanger fiddle and a five string violin or viola d'amore which he calls a Hardanger d'Amore. (first made for American Hardanger fiddle player Dan Trueman, and commissioned by Caoimhín with the head and tailpiece of Salve Hakedal's Viola d’Amore model). Ó Raghallaigh uses crosstunings or scordatura (common in Norwegian and old-time American fiddling), and uses baroque and transitional bows made by Michel Jamonneau. Ó Raghallaigh also used to play a Viola Pellegrina Pomposa by American luthier David Rivinus, a highly asymmetrical five-string viola. Caoimhín also plays tin whistle, flute and uilleann pipes, having been taught whistle and flute by Co. Clare flute-player Michael Tubridy of The Chieftains and Ceoltóirí Chualann.

In 2011 he premiered The Valley of the Lunatics, a work written for him by Dave Flynn, at the Masters of Tradition Festival in Bantry. Part of this piece is used in the soundtrack to the film The Enigma of Frank Ryan

Of the four fiddling 'greenhorns' who arrived in New York in 1928, just in time for the Great Depression - James Lad O'Beirne, Donegal native Hugh Gillespie, Roscommon man Larry Redican and Mayo-born John McGrath, Lad O’Beirne has perhaps the greatest reputation among traditional musicians.

Born in 1911 in the townland of Bellanalack near Ballymote, County Sligo, ''Lad'' was only 16 when he disembarked in New York. But as a son of fiddle master Philip O’Beirne, one of Michael Coleman’s chief influences, he was soon welcomed into elite musical circles. The connection to Coleman was strengthened when he married the older fiddler’s niece Mary in 1942. O’Beirne never made a solo commercial disc of his own, though he did cut a handful of 78 rpm sides, including one fantastic hornpipe duet with a band led by Louis Quinn. Cassette copies of some of Lad’s privately made home disc recordings circulated for years, and some of those discs have now been added to ITMA’s collection. Lad’s reputation as one of the greatest of Irish fiddlers is largely based on the impression he made on fellow musicians at house parties, private sessions and on trips back to Ireland.

Perhaps the greatest collection of Irish fiddle players ever assembled in one neighbourhood lived and played in the south Bronx in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Lad O’Beirne was the dean of this college of fiddle masters. Reels and jigs echoed from O’Beirne’s apartment every Friday night, windows thrown open to ventilate parties that drew the likes of Paddy Killoran, Paddy Sweeney, Tim Harte, Tom Connolly, Larry Redican, Louis Quinn, Vincent Harrison, Martin Wynne, Andy McGann and Paddy Reynolds. Cavan-born Philadelphia resident Ed Reavy was a frequent visitor, bringing his latest compositions to New York for the delectation of his musical peers.

Paddy Reynolds, Andy McGann, Vincent Harrison, Louis Quinn, Ed Reavy and Sligo brothers Séamus and Manus McGuire are among the many musical associates who attested to Lad’s genius as fiddler and composer. Several of Lad’s unnamed compositions are now in general circulation among traditional players the world over. When he passed away in 1980, Lad, like Coleman, Morrison and Killoran, was laid to rest in St. Raymond’s cemetery in the Bronx.