"[1]Another manifestation of this syncretic tendency emerged in New York City in the 1890s, as bands performing traditional Irish music for the large Irish immigrant community there began incorporating big band influences, adding brass and reed instruments and performing quicksteps, foxtrots, and other popular contemporary dance tunes.
Modern Celtic rock acts like The Waterboys, Jethro Tull/ Ian Anderson, Rathkeltair, Alan Stivell, Gaelic Storm, Sinéad O'Connor, The Cranberries, The Proclaimers, Red Cardell, Peatbog Faeries, Lenahan, Lordryk, Croft No.
5, Enter the Haggis, Callanach, The Dreaming, Shooglenifty, Spirit of the West, the American Rogues, Homeland, Ashley MacIsaac, Mudmen, Wolfstone, The Paperboys, and Great Big Sea, and many others have proven the genre's vitality.
It is one of the best established of the modern Celtic fusion genres, and generally includes drums, bass, guitar, and fiddle, sometimes with tin whistle, bodhran, or accordion.
Marxman, an Irish-Jamaican hip hop group, whose explicitly nationalist and Marxist politics gained them notoriety and infamy in the United Kingdom in the 1980s, incorporated traditional instruments into several songs on their first album, but largely abandoned them on their second album for a more electronica- and blues-oriented sound that would later form the basis for the emergence of trip hop.
Sinéad O'Connor contributed vocals to several of Marxman's songs and even tried her hand at rapping on her 1994 album Universal Mother with a track about the Great Irish Famine (1845-1849).
In one of their songs they used part of an arrangement of a traditional tune (Tri Martolod) by Alan Stivell, and were subsequently sued by him for copyright infringement.
More recently, Emcee Lynx, a hip hop artist from Oakland, California of primarily Scottish and Irish descent who is best known for his anarchist politics and anti-war activism, has incorporated samples of traditional instruments into his music.
[4] Celtic New Age artists such as Enya, Clannad, Afro Celt Sound System, Catya Maré, Iona, and Gary Stadler incorporate traditional melodies and lyrics with synths and pads to create a mellow relaxed fusion that has proven highly marketable.
Modern acts such as Clannad, Nightnoise, Melanie O'Reilly, and Raggle Taggle or Roland Becker (in the eighties) combine Celtic music with jazz.
The clearest example of this is Afro Celt Sound System, the members of which bring to the band strong backgrounds in either African or Irish musical tradition.
The Irish fusion group Skelpin incorporates Spanish flamenco, Middle Eastern, and American soul elements and instruments into its music.
[9] Other artists such as Loreena McKennitt, Red Cardell, the American Rogues, and Catya Maré take inspiration from numerous diverse traditions around the world, although their focus may be on Celtic music.
"Irish Folk, Trad and Blues: A Secret History" by Colin Harper (2005) covers Horslips, The Pogues, Planxty and others.