Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1999, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My costaway this week is a musician. Over the past 35 years he and the group he

leads have become the world's principal ambassadors of Irish music.

Enormously popular in their own right, they've added to their appeal by attracting other famous names to appear with them.

Mick Jagger, Van Morrison, Tom Jones, and the Caws, for example.

He himself comes from a Dublin household that was always full of music.

From that simple beginning he's woven a path through folks, skiffle, classical and pop music to create the unique position he holds today.

The world is one big musical theatre, he says, and I want to get out there and play with them

all.

He is the chief of the chieftains, Paddy Maloney. And you have Paddy and you do from China to

L. A and the Vatican in between. You once gave a private concert for the Pope, didn't you?

We did indeed. He was in Ireland and 79. We were the opening act.

Before he came, we did a 20 minute warm-up.

Then he came in his helicopter. But there was 1.3 million people there.

And how did he, the Pope, react to your music?

He loved it and invited us six months later to the Vatican

and we gave a private, you know, he has his private audience there and we were up sitting beside him and playing away every so often.

And he liked it?

He loved it and at that time we only had 12 albums in our 35 that we have now and he had all 12 of them. Is it true or is it apocryphal

that he said now I know why St Patrick went to Ireland? That's true. Yes he did yes he

had something for everybody you know he had something different to say wonderful and he

...