The cover of this pocket history shows virtuoso fiddler, Martin Hayes, bow raised, eyes lowered, deep in the trance of his music. O hAllmhurain quotes from Hayes speaking of the "draiocht", or magic, which some of the older Clare fiddlers have. But while these have influenced Hayes deeply, he has learned as much of his craft from recordings of every kind of music from Stephane Grapelli to Miles Davis. O hAllmhurain' s little book shows how such a tapestry of influences has always enriched Irish traditional music - which has, in turn, enriched other forms of music: Norman love poetry helped shape seannos, for instance, while Irish music helped shape some North American Indian music, and the "Scots-Irish" left their own particular legacy in Appalachia. It is, necessarily, a gallop through time, but just the book to interrupt those starry-eyed tourists in their endless quest for that mythical spring from which the real Celtic spirit bubbles forth.