While extending Guthrie's guitar picking technique to the mandolin,[1]: 20  he further developed his playing of this instrument—and, later, of the mandola and the bouzouki—into a decorative, harmonic style,[2]: 38  and embraced the modes and rhythms of Bulgarian folk music.

[4]: 36  He made his stage debut in the Grand Theatre in Wolverhampton and, at fourteen, received rave reviews for his performance as Morgan in the ITV Television Playhouse drama The Magpies, adapted from a Henry James short story.

In May 1959,[34]: 38  Irvine began frequenting the Ballads and Blues Club—started at the Princess Louise pub in High Holborn by Ewan MacColl in 1957[39]—which, by September 1959, had moved to 2, Soho Square under the sole leadership of Malcolm Nixon.

[46] Like other artists contracted to perform at Féile Iorrais (a community festival in Erris) in August 2007, Irvine was disgusted to learn that Royal Dutch Shell were partly sponsoring the events.

[4]: 42–43  After discovering Irish music through Séamus Ennis on Peter Kennedy's BBC programme As I Roved Out[4]: 41  and through Ciarán Mac Mathúna on Raidió Éireann,[4]: 44  Irvine studiously spent many hours at the National Library, scouring old songbooks like the Child Ballads and Sam Henry's Songs of the People,[52] as well as A.L.

Decades later, he recorded "O'Donoghue's"—released on the album Changing Trains (2004)—a song of eleven verses in which he vividly recalls these happy times, naming many of the people who were part of his transition from actor to folk musician.

Later, after being strongly affected by Charles Parker's BBC Radio Ballads with Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger–notably Singing The Fishing[59]–we began to incorporate this style into Irish and Scottish songs.

While in Ljubljana, he met Rens van der Zalm,[75] a young, classically trained violinist from the Netherlands who also played guitar, mandolin, piano, accordion and tin whistle, and who was one of the founders of the Dutch folk group Fungus.

[4]: 82 After the demise of Sweeney's Men, a new Irish-English folk super-group was almost formed in 1970, with Irvine, Moynihan, Woods and his wife Gay, plus ex-Fairport Convention Ashley Hutchings joining on bass guitar, but this never happened.

Moore, who had moved to England during the National Bank Strike of 1966,[4]: 54  had become an established musician in the English folk music scene and even recorded his first album (Paddy on the Road) there, in 1969, at the Sound Techniques studio in Chelsea.

[...] Here, Liam O'Flynn's dexterous pipering merged blissfully with Andy Irvine's mandolin and Dónal Lunny's rhythmic bouzouki to form a complex, beautiful diversion for the voice of Christy Moore.

[4]: 112  On 21 April 1972, Planxty embarked on their first tour of England, which had been booked previously by Moore, and played small folk clubs in Manchester, Bolton, Leeds, Hull, Barnsley, Blackpool, Newcastle, Chester and London, to great acclaim, returning to Ireland in May.

At Irvine's behest, Lunny was co-opted back into the band to arrange the selected material and to play on the album,[4]: 191–192  which was recorded in Sarm Studios, Whitechapel, London during August 1974 and released the same year.

[4]: 243  Nonetheless, Irvine performed with De Dannan at 'The 3rd Irish Folk Festival' in Germany on 30 April 1976,[86] playing "Martinmas Time/Danny O'Brien's Hornpipe", "Maíre Rua/Hardiman The Fiddler", "The Emigrant's Farewell", "The Boys of Ballysodare" and "The Plains of Kildare".

[96] Sometime during 1977, Irvine also recorded The Gathering,[97] along with Paul Brady, Dónal Lunny, Matt Molloy, Tommy Potts, Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill and uilleann piper Peter Browne.

[100] By the autumn of 1978,[4]: 256  Moore was ready to re-form the original Planxty line-up, complete with Lunny, who brought along flutist Matt Molloy from The Bothy Band, and rehearsals began on Tuesday, 19 September 1978.

[4]: 259  Their new manager, Kevin Flynn, then organised a mammoth European tour for the following year, from 15 April to 11 June 1979, during which the band played forty-seven concerts in fifty-eight days, in the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, France and Ireland.

[4]: 274  Personnel included Irvine, Lunny, O'Flynn, Brady (guitar and piano), Frankie Gavin (fiddle), Rick Epping (accordion, harmonica, jaw harp), John Wadham (bongo and congas), Paul Barrett (Fender Rhodes and Polymoog), Keith Donald (soprano sax) and Lucienne Purcell (vocals).

The original, vinyl album[70] closed with the self-penned "Rainy Sundays",[66]: 72–76  a nostalgic song reminiscing about Vida, with whom Irvine pursued "a one-sided romance in Ljubljana years ago.

[109] The remaining three tracks were: "General Monroe" – a traditional song re-arranged by Irvine (bouzouki, harmonica) in duet with Lunny (guitar);[66]: 53–55  "First Slip/Hardyman The Fiddler A&B/The Yellow Wattle" – a set of jigs by Planxty, including Matt Molloy; and "John of Dreams" – a ballad by Moore, which was later re-released on the CD version of The Iron Behind the Velvet.

This six-member formation of Moore, Irvine, Lunny, O'Flynn, Hill and Linnane were joined by Matt Molloy and keyboardist Bill Whelan, to record the band's fifth album, The Woman I Loved So Well,[4]: 274 [110] at Windmill Lane Studios over two periods: 23–29 April and 16–19 May.

[4]: 283–285  The same sextet also played a series of one-off events, including at the Hammersmith Odeon in March 1981,[4]: 292  and recorded a suite called "Timedance"—with full orchestra and rhythm section—which was also performed during the interval of the Eurovision Song Contest, held in Dublin on 4 April 1981.

[4]: 301 Nevertheless, Planxty—with Whelan and Casey still on board—reconvened at Windmill Lane Studios in late October and early November 1982, to record Words & Music, which also featured fiddler James Kelly and Moving Hearts bass guitarist Eoghan O'Neill.

The guitar role, however, passed: After Jackie Daly retired from Patrick Street, John Carty joined on fiddle, flute and tenor banjo in time to record On The Fly.

[42] It features "Never Tire of the Road", Irvine's tribute song to Woody Guthrie, alongside mainly self-penned material celebrating some of his other heroes: Raoul Wallenberg, James Connolly, Emiliano Zapata, Michael Dwyer, Douglas Mawson, Aeneas Mackintosh and Sinclair Lewis.

[143] So, shortly thereafter, he was rehearsing again with Davy Spillane (uilleann pipes and low whistle) to record East Wind, a collection of Bulgarian and Macedonian tunes played Irish-style[144] and produced by Whelan, who also contributed keyboards and piano.

[161] In late 2002, broadcaster and journalist Leagues O'Toole was working as presenter and researcher for the RTÉ television show No Disco and persuaded the programme editor, Rory Cobbe, to develop a one-off documentary about Planxty.

"[162] A recording of this version of "As I Roved Out"[81]: 6–7  was eventually released on Peter Ratzenbeck's album Resonances in 2007,[163] where Irvine appeared as a guest and played it solo on his "Stefan Sobell mandola, tuned CGDG (Capo 0)".

[166][167] Personnel included: Marianne Green (vocals), Irvine (bouzouki, mandolin, mandola, bass-bouzouki, harmonica), Colum Sands (double bass, concertina) and Gerry O'Conner (violin).

[168] In August 2010, Irvine released his fifth solo album: Abocurragh,[45][169][170] recorded in Dublin, Norway, Australia, Hungary and Brittany between February 2009 and April 2010 and produced by Dónal Lunny, who also plays on all but one of the tracks.