[2] Mícheál Ó Domhnaill co-founded the popular Irish traditional group The Bothy Band in 1974, along with Paddy Glackin (fiddle), Matt Molloy (flute and tin whistle), Paddy Keenan (uilleann pipes and tin whistle), Dónal Lunny (bouzouki, guitar, and production), and his sister Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill (harpsichord, clavinet and vocals).

[2] When the Bothy Band disbanded in 1979, Burke and Ó Domhnaill toured the United Kingdom and Europe together, and recorded a highly acclaimed album, Promenade (1979).

Ó Domhnaill went on to form the popular group Nightnoise with his sister Tríona, Billy Oskay, and Brian Dunning; he lived in Portland until 1997, when he returned to Ireland.

The song is about an exile from Aird Uí Chumhaing who looks across at his native coastline from the Mull of Kintre in Scotland and dreams of finding a boat that will carry him back to his childhood home, where he longs to live out the rest of his days.

[8] In contrast to the "propulsive power and bracing brinkmanship" produced by the Bothy Band, the duo set off on a different musical path that one reviewer from the Irish Echo called "soulful finesse".

[8]Ó Domhnaill's guitar playing and Burke's Sligo-style Irish fiddling achieved a "relaxed vitality" through "compelling melodies, pulsing Sligo rhythms, intricate variations, and vocal perfection".

[9] Reviewers singled out the "tender, baring passion" of Ó Domhnaill's voice in his renditions of "Eirigh a Shiuir" and "Aird Ui Chumhaing".

His acoustic guitar playing was, like himself, unobtrusive yet intense, focused on gimmick-free impact and ever-mindful that it must support, not supplant, Burke's melodic fiddling.