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Dermot McLaughlin is fiddle player, promoter and producer. Both his parents were interested and active in music and culture: his father played harmonica, accordion, whistle and fiddle, his mother played piano. He played classical piano initially, taking part in the school orchestra and céilí band, and he and his brother Joe were taught fiddle by Tony Blace – once a member of David Curry’s band. Dermot began playing traditional music in the early 1970s, with maternal relations Denis Heaney and Paddy McMahon, Dolly 443 McCafferty as influences, but his main inspiration has been the music of Donegal, particularly the fiddle playing of John Doherty. He has also studied the repertoire and style of such as Con Cassidy, James Byrne, Francie Dearg O’Beirne and Mickey Golly. He has recorded on Fiddlesticks, and on James Byrne’s solo album. From 1986 until 1998 he was traditional music officer, then music officer, with the Arts Council in Dublin, and was involved in the setting up of Cairdeas na bhFidiléirí and the ITMA. In 2003 he moved to promoting music with Temple Bar Cultural Trust. He has produced music for Claddagh, initiated the Temple Bar Trad Festival in Dublin, and scripted and presented The Raw Bar series for RTÉ 1 television. He is the chair of the Dublin International Dance Festival and of the ITMA.

Boyle, Finbar. (1951– ). Singer, commentator. From Dundalk, Co. Louth, as a teenager, hearing The Dubliners germinated his interest in traditional singing, and local sessions in Mark’s Bar gave him a contiguous, supportive resource and platform. He taught for four years following college at St Patrick’s, Drumcondra, then worked with Dublin City Libraries prior to joining the Department of Folklore in UCD where he spent ten years. He became involved with the Tradition Club at Slattery’s, Dublin, c.1971 performing there regularly himself, and was one of the organisers of the Dublin Folk Festival in the later ’70s. He wrote reviews, critiques and commentaries on traditional music for In Dublin magazine over several years and researched music for RTÉ’s Sunday Folk radio show. Highly regarded for his detailed familiarity with all traditional musics, he programmed the Temple Bar Trad Festival from 2006 to 2008.

Charlie Mulvihill was born in Manhattan, where his concertina-playing father Tom, an immigrant from Miltown Malbay, County Clare, drove trolley cars and ran a Prohibition-era speakeasy. Charlie started playing concertina when he was about nine years old and took up the button accordion soon after. On his return from army service in World War II, he and his new wife Noreen settled in the south Bronx, where he joined the company of the neighborhood’s many great Irish musicians. Lawrence Dolan, traditional music columnist for the Advocate, recalled those days in his 23 August 1975 obituary:
“Our fond recollections of Charlie go back to the early 40's when we were neighbors in the South Bronx. We often thrilled to the traditional music set forth at the Irish House - formerly the Leitrim House, on East 138th Street between Willis and Alexander Ave. Charlie would often join in with other great Irish musicians such as Paddy Killoran, Paddy Sweeney, Jack Mc Kenna, Jack Murphy, Bessie Sweeney, Harry Carroll, Joey Flynn, John McGrath, etc. The floor was always jam-packed with those up for the Caledonian Sets. The jigs and reels of Ireland were never performed any better than in those days at the Irish House, when Charlie joined his friends on the music stage.”
Charlie Mulvihill was highly regarded by his fellow musicians for his huge repertoire and knowledge of the names and histories of traditional tunes. He was one of the few D-row accordionists who could really play alongside the city’s top fiddlers on equal terms. He and fiddler Paddy Reynolds were recorded together in 1971 on “Sweet and Traditional Music of Ireland,” the first LP issued by Paddy Noonan’s Rego Irish Records label. Charlie and Paddy also often played together in the summer at Mullen’s Mountain View Farm (now the Blackthorn) in the Irish Catskills resort town of East Durham. And it was at Mullen’s that Charlie fell fatally ill in 1975. He passed on his musical talents to his children, pianist Geraldine and fiddler/singer/guitarist Tommy Mulvihill.

John Oliver Moran (1 January 1933–27 May 2017) was born in Killarney and grew up in Cahirsiveen. His father was chief veterinary officer for Munster. Oliver qualified as a solicitor, worked in Rhodesia, returned to Ireland and worked there as a qualified town planner. He was the youngest of a singing family of five, but didn't play an instrument. He was unmarried.