By Sarah Becker (c)2026

I first learned to appreciate Irish music years ago when dealing with my father’s Alzheimer’s disease. “Because musical memory is often preserved in areas of the brain that resist damage, familiar Irish tunes and singalongs can instantly trigger positive emotions,” Creative Ireland Wexford confirmed.

My father, born in music’s vinyl era, was not communicating well. Frustration had overtaken him, as had occasional rage. One day, in the spur of the moment, I turned on the stereo and let crooner Bing Crosby serenade him. Soon after the song began, I found my father smiling. Crosby’s deeply melodic interpretation of Ireland’s Danny Boy had him tapping his feet: with a steady even beat in perfect 4/4 time.

Fast forward: “a foremost initiative” of the Johns Hopkins Center for Music and Medicine is the development of music and rhythm-based therapies that address symptoms of certain neurological diseases. It is the distinct, underlying rhythm of Irish music that helps the body to move.

Today’s researchers agree. Upbeat Irish jigs and reels can trigger vivid recollections of youth, heritage, and social gatherings. Looking back, dancing with my father was fun. Not only did he remember that I was his daughter–it is music’s underlying rhythm that provides the pulse for social dancing–he also recalled playing his clarinet with the Evansville philharmonic orchestra.

Ireland’s traditional wind instruments include hornpipes, flutes, and high-pitched tin-whistles. Its “musical tradition goes back well over a thousand years,” Boston’s Library explained. “For nearly all of this time, it’s been an oral tradition passed on from one musician to another. It’s only been fairly recently that the music has been recorded in written and audio forms.”

“The music can be found played in homes, pubs, reception halls and concert halls,” the Library continued. “Many would argue that the best place to see it is in more casual settings. It is music to listen to, to dance to, to laugh with, and to cry with. Whatever the occasion, there is a song or instrumental piece that will fit the mood.”

Alexandria’s popular, Wammie Award winning Irish Breakfast Band fits the Boston Library’s description well. As do two of Alexandria’s King Street restaurants: O’Connell’s Irish Restaurant & Bar [112] and Murphy’s Grand Irish Pub [713]. The latter offer weekly entertainment, entertainment which often includes traditional Irish music. For more information visit: danieloconnell.com and or murphyspub.com.

The Irish Breakfast Band’s many members describe themselves as “a community. A band that’s easy to get into and hard to get out of.”

Highly rated by The Washington Post, the Irish Breakfast Band’s Kennedy Center debut included a program for children with special needs. More often than not, their Lyceum concerts sell-out immediately. In the 1840s The Lyceum [now the Alexandria History Museum] “operated as Lyceum Hall and hosted traveling performers from England, Austria, Spain, and Ireland.”

The Band’s popularity rests with its audience. The power “to establish a uniform rule of naturalization” rests with Congress. Emigrate describes the move relative to the point of departure. Immigrate describes the move relative to the destination.

As of 1795, U.S. citizenship required a five-year residency. “[T]he United States has never adopted any measure to encourage or invite emigrants,” Secretary of State John Quincy Adams wrote in 1819. “It has never held out any incitements to induce the subjects of any other sovereign to abandon their own country.”

“They come to a life of independence, to a life of labor—and, if they cannot accommodate themselves to the character, moral, political, and physical of this country, with all its compensating balances of good and evil, they may always…return to the land of their nativity,” Adams continued.

It is said the Irish arrived in Alexandria beginning in the 1820s, mostly in the 1840s and 1850s, Some came for religious reasons. Others for reason of the Great Potato Famine.

In 1820 Alexandria’s population was 8,207 residents: residents mostly of English, Scotch-Irish, and African ancestry. In fact the U.S. Census did not record places of birth until 1850.

“As a result of increased interest in theories of racial hierarchy, “mulatto” [half-Black] was added as a category to both free and slave populations,” A [short] history of the race question on the decennial census revealed. “Increased immigration, largely from Ireland, led to the introduction of a question about place of birth.”

The latter change confirmed a measurable but small community of Irish immigrants in Alexandria working as laborers, “as domestic servants, grocery clerks, merchant shopkeepers and other.”

U.S. Constitution, Amendment 14, Section 1, as ratified July 28, 1868, post-Civil War: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States….”

“We have not one-quarter the population in Virginia that we ought to have,” Governor Gilbert C. Walker said in 1872. “I go heart and soul for keeping our young men at home, but we want others to help us build up the Commonwealth. The importance of immigration is generally conceded…We want no pauper immigrants, nor others to break down Virginia. We can keep that class out. What we want are honest, industrious, thrifty citizens—who will come and improve and build upon our lands.” The top three countries of immigrant origin in 1890: England, Germany and the Irish Free State.

Author James Truslow Adams first described the American dream in 1931, in his book The Epic of America.  Though the Crash of 1929 signaled the beginning of the Great Depression, Adams argued there was also a spirit of progress.  He coined the phrase then explained “that ‘American dream’ of a better, richer, and happier life for all our citizens of every rank….”

Irish-Americans had a dream, a Celtic-American dream. Wrote the legendary Irish band Clannad: “Down the path of a hallowed place, Where music comes alive, With pipes and drums all the dancing is done, By a candle light…Rocking stones from long ago, Form a lasting sight, A shooting star on a magical night, It was A Celtic Dream.”

“They came here—the exile and the stranger; brave but frightened—to find a place where a man could be a man,” President Lyndon B. Johnson [D-TX] said in his 1965 Inaugural Address. “They made a covenant with this land [and] it binds us still.”

Depending on who one talks to Alexandria’s Irish Breakfast Band was formed in either 1974 or the early 1980s.  All agreed that “we learned Irish music because that’s what our teacher Rob Thornburg [Old Town Music Store, 115 S. Henry Street]] played…For musical support, we decided to get together each weekend.”

The Band grew and “after learning about ten tunes it accepted an invitation to play at a teachers convention.,” fiddler and band leader Sean Doherty agreed. “Since the educators were a receptive audience, we played at a poetry reading and then a Georgetown bar…There was no stopping us,” The Band, a Top Ten as of 2005, has played for parties, weddings, and First Night Alexandria. For D.C.’s National Christmas Tree Lighting and Alexandria’s waterfront crowds. It also partners with schools of Irish Dance.

The Irish Breakfast Band has demonstrated broad appeal.  Its 2015 cookbook, for example, includes a recipe for Breakfast Burritos. Concluded fiddler Sandy Hoar: “any mental health that I have had since [my welcome] I attribute to the Band.” To the music’s measured 6/8 or 4/4 beat.

“I threw myself into the music with a passion that surpassed my love for Broadway and standards, popular and requests,” pianist Martha Beall recalled. For more information visit: https://www.irishbreakfastband.com.  The Irish Breakfast Band has three full length CDs available.

About the Author: Sarah Becker started writing for The Economist while a graduate student in England. Similar publications followed. She joined the Crier in 1996 while serving on the Alexandria Convention and Visitors Association Board. Her interest in antiquities began as a World Bank hire, with Indonesia’s need to generate hard currency. Balinese history, i.e. tourism provided the means. The New York Times describes Becker’s book, Off Your Duffs & Up the Assets, as “a blueprint for thousands of nonprofit managers.” A former museum director, SLAM’s saving grace Sarah received Alexandria’s Salute to Women Award in 2007. Email abitofhistory53@gmail.com