DeAngelo: I'm a musician.

I'm a musician, and I play traditional Irish music.

That's my reason for being.

That's the air that I breathe.

It all has to do with the music.

What is special about Irish music?

It just speaks to me.

They're simple tunes, but they're simple and at the same time, they're complicated.

You know, a dance tune is just -- The melody is not all that complicated, but in order to give it its real flavor, I mean, there are ornamentations you put on different notes.

You don't have to do it the same way every time.

You might make little variations in the melody.

And, you know, every time you play it, you might play it slightly differently, but not improvising.

You're just taking that melody and giving it that flavor.

Everybody does it a little bit differently, but when you get everybody all together and everybody plays together, there's nothing like it.

Narrator: Every week, Kathy DeAngelo and her husband, Dennis Gormley, host a session where people drop in to play Irish music together.

DeAngelo: It's been at a couple of different places in South Jersey.

We call it now the South Jersey Irish Session.

Now we just do it in our living room, which is kind of great for us.

We don't have to drive anywhere.

We set up the chairs, people come in, we sit down, we play tunes, and it's just -- it's great.

Gormley: You can go almost anywhere in the world and there'll be an Irish music session somewhere you can go to and sit down and play this repertoire together with people from that area.

Narrator: Dennis and Kathy play together professionally as McDermott's Handy.

The first time was in 1978, when they played a tribute concert to the great Irish fiddler Ed McDermott.

DeAngelo: I didn't really have a big grounding in traditional music.

That wasn't until I met Ed McDermott.

He was recorded for the Library of Congress for the Folk Music Archives.

He's a legend in my mind.

[ Music playing ] Narrator: Born in the late 1800s, Ed McDermott emigrated from Ireland in 1915, bringing his fiddle with him.

During the folk music revival in the 1960s and '70s, young people began seeking him out.

DeAngelo: You know, I'd had him at the coffee house that I was running in New Brunswick, the Mine Street Coffeehouse.

Gormley: Ed McDermott learned fiddle playing from his father.

It's like we can look back to, like, the mid-1800s and see where the music that we played came from.

Then we can also look deep into the 21st century.

DeAngelo: So we'll try with the E minor C chord of your choice.

All right?

And...

Right here.

Could be there.

Petre: Today I was working on "Clergy's Lamentation."

It's a very old tune.

I really like the old Irish and Scottish tunes that are more melodious and slower and more sad almost.

DeAngelo: The symbol of Ireland is the harp.

Before there were fiddles, the harper was an exalted member of the society who played this magnificent instrument.

Narrator: But by the 1980s, it was hard for Kathy to even find an Irish harp to play.

Since then, there's been a resurgence.

And in America, Kathy has been a big part of it.

For many years, she ran the Somerset Folk Harp Festival, an international gathering for harpers.

Gormley: One of the premier harp makers from France said this is the greatest harp event on the planet.

DeAngelo: All right, here we go.

And... Narrator: Once a month, you can find Kathy teaching Irish music at the Commodore Barry Center in Philadelphia.

This Sunday happened to be St. Patrick's Day.

DeAngelo: Usually the second Sunday of the month, Dennis and myself and our friend Chris Brennan Hagy, we all teach Irish music, and we think it's real important to bring that tradition to younger people.

Hagy: Today we're here to teach kids of all ages Irish tunes.

We teach a tune or two and then we have a little session, go around and give the kids an opportunity to play together.

We've taught hundreds of them over the years, and some now are now leading their own sessions and teaching, and it's great to see them moving on.

In fact, one of our kids is now the head fiddler at the "Riverdance" show.

Narrator: At the Commodore Barry Club, after the session comes Irish dancing.

DeAngelo: They teach the dances.

And these are not step dancing.

The fancy dancing like "Riverdance" type dancing.

This is group dancing.

I'll tell you, when you started to actually go through the dance and you start hearing the tunes that you've learned and now dancing to that music, it just kind of completes that circle.

But the music just speaks to me.

I love it.

[ Cheers and applause ]