About

Bogtrotters at railing

The Bogtrotters

The Bogtrotters offer a broad repertoire of Irish music that includes jigs and reels and vocal treasures such as “The Star of the County Down”, The Foggy Dew”, and “Black Velvet Band”.

The Bogtrotters have performed for the Look About Lodge Concerts in Cleveland Metroparks, the Eastside Irish American Club, the Geneva-on-the-Lake Irish Festival, the Mahoning Valley Irish Festival, the Steele Mansion in Painesville, OH, and has been the house band at the Hyatt Regency Arcade for Saint Patrick’s Day parades for almost two decades.

The Bogtrotters began in the early 1980’s as a vocal group singing the traditional Clancy Brothers repertoire. The group reformed in 2006, the addition of instruments moved the band into more traditional territory with pennywhistle, flute, banjo, mandolin Celtic guitar, bodhran, and bass.

About the Irish bogtrotters

The term “bogtrotter” refers to the country folk of Ireland who, for thousands of years, did the backbreaking work of cutting and drying the pieces of bog to be used for heating homes during the cold blustery winters, particularly in the west. The bricks of turf burn slowly and can warm a room for many hours. The subtle, earthy smell of the “turf fire” is much revered by those who remember the “old ways.”