Adam in Paradise

Adam in Paradise : four songs on courtship from the Ulster Tradition / sung by Eddie Butcher

The Irish Traditional Music Archive and the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum are pleased to be able to reissue on CD Adam in Paradise, an EP released by the Ulster Folk Museum in 1969 which was the first recording to feature Eddie Butcher, one of the most important traditional singers in Ireland in the twentieth century.

Eddie Butcher was born in 1900 and grew up at the foot of Benevenagh, a picturesque mountain in north Derry overlooking Lough Foyle. His repertory comprised traditional material he learnt in his homeplace and songs which he and others in his locality had composed. He made numerous radio broadcasts on RTÉ and BBC Radio Ulster from the 1960s, and his songs and his singing influenced many others in the world of traditional singing including the late Frank Harte, Brian Mullen and Len Graham.

It is hoped that these first published recordings of Eddie Butcher's singing with notes by Hugh Shields, reissued to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death, will highlight his contribution to the Irish song tradition and introduce a new generation of singers to his mastery of it.