SnoopyStyle Jimmy McMahon (Colm Meaney) leads his traditional Ceili band in Liverpool despite the explosion of the Beatles. Meanwhile back in County Clare, John Joe (Bernard Hill) is sharpening his group to defend their victories at the Irish traditional music competition. Jimmy McMahon returns to County Clare for the competition and does battle with his brother John Joe McMahon.The music is good at times. Colm Meaney and Bernard Hill are solid actors who carry this movie. The other actors aren't as good. Andrea Corr of the band The Corrs does a passable job as the ingénue daughter. Occasionally, there are a few cute jokes, but the drama isn't as good as it should. They dance around the secret for half of the movie. The secret gets a big reveal, but it's only a blip in the otherwise generic movie. Director John Irvin just doesn't have the touch for this material.

TxMike It is the 1960s, and the Beetles' music is sweeping the world. There is an annual competition in Dublin, the type of music has a name but is unfamiliar to most of the world. The local favorite band is getting ready for it, with the boys of County Clare, and one very cute and very talented girl.At the same time a band based in Liverpool is getting ready for the same competition, and its leader is the brother of the leader of the Irish band. So much of the movie involves heated competition between the brothers, including some antics to try to delay each one enough to miss the registration deadline of 8PM.Things get more complicated when the young girl in the Irish band begins to fall for a nice young boy in the Liverpool band. Her mother is unusually upset by this, and warns her daughter not to run off to Liverpool. "Let him come to you."SPOILERS. The young daughter happens to also be the daughter of the Liverpool brother, a womanizer who had had a short fling with her mother years earlier. At first it seemed that the girl would go back to Liverpool with the band, but she changed her mind and statued home. But eventually the boy from Liverpool showed up for her, as her mother had suggested. Also, a dark horse won the competition, a band put together by the 3rd of the violin playing brothers, now a missionary priest who had brought along a group of black musicians he had taught to play the Irish music.

chicitysue The All Ireland music competitions, called "Fleadh Cheoil" (Flah Keeole)(Music Festival) are still being held every August in the Republic of Ireland. Even though the fleadh in the movie took place in 1966, the depictions of the fleadh are realistic with the streets full of people, the presence of people who have nothing directly to do with the competitions coming to the festivities, competing musicians from overseas,and the musicians playing in sessions.There is a lot of humor in this movie, but also some family drama. The focus is the Ceili Band competitions with the bands of two brothers, one from rural Clare in Ireland and the other from Liverpool, who have had had a feud for over twenty years.I enjoyed both the comedy and the realism of this movie.

mcmahon4 I think the other reviews did not give this film enough credit. My wife and I, as well as everyone in the theatre we were in, enjoyed this film immensely. First of all, it is a beautiful film to look at as its views in Ireland are simply breathtaking. Second, it is a wonderful touching story, particularly the relationships between the two brothers and Andrea Corr and her mother. Andrea Corr, by the way is stunning, and I think she will be doing more films. Perhaps you need a bit of understanding growing up as an Irish Catholic to fully appreciate it, but the overall writing was very clever and fun. I did want to know a bit more about the back story, of how these people got to the point that they are, but I wonder whether I lost a bit, because sometimes the Irish speak so quickly, that important lines go right past you. I want to see it again.