released January 26, 2021

"SCHITHEREDEE" is an easy-going catchphrase for Irish Traditional music and song. It is a flag of convenience for the combinations of Tim Lyons and Fintan Vallely with song (Satirical and otherwise), flute, tin whistle and button accordion in various solos and duets.

Tim Lyons was born in County Cork but at the age of twelve his family moved to the English Midlands. There he learned to play the accordion and on returning to Ireland in 1959 began absorbing all he could in the world of singing - in particular drawing a lot from Paddy Tunney, and the Sean Nós style of Joe Heaney. By the mid-'60's he was established as a singer in his own right and moved back to England where he performed widely on the Folk Club Circuit. In the early '70's he returned to Ireland to settle in Co. Clare - a boom-time for the development of Irish music. He toured with De Danann for a year in '78 taking in Europe and the United States and has spent the intervening years gigging all over Ireland. For a number of years he lived close to Galway city where he played regularly in some of that city's year-round music pubs. Tim was also a frequent guest at festival and club venues and recorded two solo albums, including one with Green Linnet. In an effort to while away the long hours while waiting on the great wheel of life to go 'round Tim turned to song writing a few years ago after the bad summer of '85. This brought him to the attention of the media and since then he really hasn't looked back-now expounding sarcastically, moralistically, satirically and wittily on all sorts of evils which plague so-called 20th century life - Fast food, Lounge bar culture, the E(E?)C, Bodhráns, murder . . . His efforts recently won him the highest accolade in song writing in Ireland at the moment - the Roughty Valley competition based in Co. Kerry and was a regular participant on music programmes on National Radio. Tim had a powerful voice that could cut through a noisy bar room, yet he could exercise the finest skill and control with the most intricate melodic embellishments when singing the longer more introspective ballads such as Lord Gregory. While the bulk of his material is Irish, nevertheless his witty songs all deal with international "betes noirs", while a good chunk of his repertoire was Scottish and English - reflecting his years on the Folk Club circuit. He was the rare combination of an all-round entertainer who retained the quality of being a singer's singer.

Fintan Vallely comes from the other end of Ireland, in County Armagh. Growing up on "The Dark Loanen" - a mile-long narrow lane where the thorn hedges once met at the top - in an environment of apples and turnips and in an atmosphere of céilí bands, he took up the Whistle at the beginning of the sixties for no particular reason at all at the age of fifteen. He absorbed a lot from the radio and the odd record an with cousins Brian and Dara (Armagh Rhymers ) was involved at the beginning of the Armagh Piper's club. He took up the flute in '65 and went on to the Uilleann pipes, in all this period playing endlessly mostly at sessions in Counties Armagh and Tyrone. Mostly sticking to the flute now, he has a distinctive style in which he ornaments by subtle rolling and undercutting, rounding out the rhythm using his diaphragm, and articulating notes with a tongued 'ch' and at the back of the throat. His repertoire takes in the spectrum of traditional tunes - Airs, hornpipes. marches, jigs, reels, slides, polkas and Carolan tunes - favouring a Sligo and Clare style to the playing. As with Tim In recent years, the state of the nation - and in particular the beliefs of its various flocks - drove Fintan into the arena of Satirical song writing wherein he flogs a selection of sacred cows with little mercy. Christy Moore sings and has recorded one of his more popular songs. On the other side Fintan is regular teacher at Ireland's unofficial university of Traditional music - the Willie Clancy Summer School. in Milltown Malbay, Co. Clare. He has produced the only tutor for the wooden Concert Flute ("Timber", published 1986, now in its fifth printing). He has participated in Arts Council-sponsored music tours in both parts of Ireland and has played abroad in Asia, all over Europe, and in America where he recorded a solo album with Shanachie.

Tim and Fintan often played and sang together in Friel's in Milltown Malbay and out of that got together to tour Scotland in '88, They have performed together all over Ireland, Scotland and England and have recorded two cassette albums of their songs and music "From bogs and drains . . ." in '88 (mostly music), and "Knock, knock, Knock!" (mostly Satirical song) in '89.

Reviews
"We were enraptured by the unique and clever humour in the singing" - Jackie Sinclair, Inverness Folk Club

"One of the finest nights of traditional music, and one of the biggest audiences- we have had in the club" -Andy Johnstone, Star Folk Club, Glasgow.

"The vocal emphasis at this year's Edinburgh International Folk Festival centred firmly on the slings and arrows of the singer-songwriter ... the witty, cunning, contemporary word-play of Tim Lyons and Fintan Vallely serving as a leavening for the splendid hame fare of the Scots".
- The Scotsman

"A lovely mixture - Tim's lilting, creamy voice, Fintan's robust yet expressive and delicate flute playing ... their musicality and their warm personalities were a real joy"
- Sheena Wellington, St Andrew's Folk Club

"It's the original material which makes their performance absolutely irresistible. Witty lyrics consummately sung - this devastating devilment is the last word in 'diddlydee'!"
- Belfast Telegraph

"Fintan and Tim took the place apart with some hilarious ballads on the delights of poteen, EEC, hamburgers, life-jackets and Irish contraception ... I was too busy laughing to take notes legibly".
- Folk Roots

Tim Lyons (1939-2019) was an important figure on the folk club circuit in Britain from the nineteen sixties with a profound traditional singing style on big ballads and 19th-century comic song. He made a new name for himself in Ireland in the 1980s and 90s with nationally-performed, highly-original, hilarious compositions and his edgy, melodeon-style accordion playing in Galway sessions. He toured with De Dannan in 1978 and has two LPs - The Green Linnet (Leader/ Celtic Music), and Easter Snow (Green Linnet. He toured with Fintan Vallely in Scotland, England and Ireland from the late 1980s, recording the cassette 'Knock, Knock, Knock' together in 1988, songs and music.

All songs by Fintan Vallely and Tim Lyons except track 12, which is 19th-century Traditional.
Recorded and mixed by Malcolm Wray in Co. Derry, with Joe Mulheron (Ulster Folk Music Association) 1989. New recording and mastering by Glen Cumiskey, ITMA, Dublin, 2000, and Patrick Farrelly, New York, 2007.
Photo by Derek Spiers, graphic by Brian Moore, design and sleeve by Nick Lethert, notes by Fintan Vallely. Pressed by AxisPPM, Dublin. This edition by www.imusic.ie, 2009. All lyrics © Tim Lyons and Fintan Vallely. Songs, extra verses and notes on www.singup.eu.