Padraig Lalor

I was born in Belfast and grew up at the height of the troubles there in the 1970s. I attended Saint Paul's Primary school on the Falls Road and Saint Gabriel's in Ardoyne.

I grew up in Beechmount and Ardoyne in North Belfast. Music I listened to at that time was whatever was in the charts and home grown Irish rebel and Traditional.

It was the latter that I took up when I began singing from behind curtains at the age of 5 in my aunties' house in Chatham Street.

Rebel songs by bands such as the Wolfe Tones and the Flying Column were favourites among the teenagers on the streets of Belfast.

The song Tom Williams on my Ireland a Troubled Romance album I learned from a rag and bone man who pushed a pram round the streets and would sing for a bag of rags or a penny. It is reputed to have been written by Jimmy Steele, Commander of the IRA in Belfast in the early 1970s.

It is about a Belfast Republican hanged in the 1940s for his part in the Irish struggle. Buried in a prison grave, his body was re-interred in the Republican plot at Milltown Cemetary as part of the Good Friday Agreement.

When I formed a band

Whilst studying politics at Ruskin College Oxford in 1991 I went to an pub called the Bullingdon on the Cowley Road that was run by an Irishman. There was an open mic session there every Wednesday night.

My first night at the session I borrowed a guitar and sang a rendition of the Green Fields of France (Eric Bogle) and Dublin in the rare old times. I enjoyed the fact that people liked these songs and I got a buzz out of their eagerness for more.

I started going every week and on one occasion a fiddle player turned up and accompanied me on my songs. The fiddle player and I became good friends and played together every week at the Bullingdon.

Within two years of playing together we formed a duo called Henry Marten's Battle Ensign and started playing in other pubs in and around Oxford.

Soon we were joined by two others playing whistles, accordion and bodhran. In 1994 the name of the band was changed to Henry Marten's Ghost. We armed ourselves with a PA microphones and everything that we needed for live gigs and we set about gigging everywhere in Europe.

In 1999 I settled in Wales and met the current band members Huw Rees and Gill O' Shea. With Henry Marten's Ghost I have recorded 4 albums and 2 EPs.

1995 The Promised Land

1997 4 Track EP

2001 Top Secret

2002 Ireland a Troubled Romance

2005 High on Spirits

2006 4 Track EP

I am currently working on a solo album which will feature most of my songs that you will find throughtout this site.

Who is Henry Marten?

A question asked at almost every gig. Who was Henry Marten? Click on the name for a biography of Henry Marten.