Relaunching
‘Where Songs Do Thunder’
Relaunching a new edition of Paddy Tunney’s Where Songs Do Thunder: Travels in Traditional Song
Where Songs Do Thunder
In 2026, the Tunney Song Tradition Trust will publish a new edition of Paddy Tunney’s Where Songs Do Thunder: Travels in Traditional Song, bringing one of his most vivid and wide-ranging works back into circulation for a new generation of singers, readers and folk enthusiasts.
First published in 1991, Where Songs Do Thunder was intended as a follow-up to Paddy’s first memoir and song collection, The Stone Fiddle: My Way to Traditional Song. While The Stone Fiddle looked back to the world of Paddy’s youth — the songs he learned from his mother, his uncle Michael Gallagher, and the many source singers he encountered in the first decades of his life — Where Songs Do Thunder turns outward to the wider world of traditional song, performance and revival.
A Journey Through the Revival
Where Songs Do Thunder is chiefly concerned with the traditional and folk revival of the 1950s, the ballad boom of the 1960s, and the energetic folk scene of the early 1970s. Through Paddy’s eyes, we encounter a period of extraordinary movement, creativity and rediscovery, when songs travelled between kitchens, clubs, festivals, concert halls and recording studios.
At times, the book reads like a who’s who of the traditional and folk music scenes of those years, not only in Ireland, but also in England, Scotland and as far away as the United States. Paddy brings to life the singers, musicians, collectors, characters and companions who shaped that remarkable era.
The Joy of Song
Throughout the book, Paddy captures the excitement and possibility of the revival years. His writing is full of warmth, humour, sharp observation and the delight of a man who found himself in the middle of a great flowering of traditional music and song.
At one point, summing up the energy and pure joy of those years, Paddy writes:
“It was good to be alive, but to be young was very heaven!”
That feeling runs through the book. Where Songs Do Thunder is not only a record of songs and singers; it is a celebration of the friendships, journeys, discoveries and shared performances that helped carry Irish traditional song into a new age.
"My father had always intended for this book to reach as many people as possible – for his songs to be sung, his stories to be told. Because that is at the very heart of our traditional culture in Ireland, the sharing of music, song and story and the way we pass these on from generation to generation. This is who we are, this is our beating heart."John Tunney
The New Edition
The Tunney Song Tradition Trust is publishing this new edition to return Paddy’s stories, portraits and songs to the people who will value them most: singers, musicians, researchers, readers and all those drawn to the living tradition.
The 2026 edition has been carefully prepared to enrich the reader’s experience. It is fully indexed and includes a comprehensive new introduction, a foreword by Dr Peadar Mac Gabhann, more than a dozen photographs, an expanded glossary, the texts of eleven additional songs and much more.
A Collection for Singers
At the heart of Where Songs Do Thunder is a remarkable collection of songs. As with all of Paddy Tunney’s work, the songs are not presented as museum pieces, but as living things: to be learned, sung, shared and passed on.
The new edition will make this collection more accessible than ever before, offering readers not only the texts of the songs, but also the context, colour and memory that surround them.
Recording the Songs
Plans are also in place to record the fifty songs that appear in Where Songs Do Thunder. In time, these recordings will be made freely available through the Tunney Song Tradition Trust website.
The aim is simple: to make it easier for anyone who wishes to learn these songs to do so. By pairing the printed collection with accessible recordings, the Trust hopes to support singers directly and help ensure that the songs continue to live in performance.
Continuing Paddy’s Legacy
The publication of Where Songs Do Thunder continues the Tunney Song Tradition Trust’s work of preserving, sharing and renewing Paddy Tunney’s extraordinary contribution to Irish traditional song.
Like The Stone Fiddle, this book is rooted in memory, voice and tradition. But it also reaches into the great revival years, when old songs found new audiences and singers carried inherited music into clubs, festivals and gatherings across the world.
This new edition honours that journey. It celebrates Paddy Tunney as singer, storyteller, writer and witness to one of the most dynamic periods in modern folk history, and it invites a new generation to listen, learn and sing.
Purchase the new edition of Where Songs Do Thunder