Only a couple more days remain of IGSI's tour of Ireland. This weekend found us in Galway and Connemara, where the rain didn't spoil the beauty of the scenery. After the tour bus returned to Galway yesterday afternoon, Bill and I walked over to The Crane. During our 2010 trip to Ireland, we'd gone there on a friend's recommendation and reveled in the music we heard Upstairs at the Crane Bar on that Sunday afternoon. The Crane on Sea Road is one of Galway's best known traditional music pubs. When we arrived yesterday, it was nearly 5 pm and we were too late for the music upstairs. However we were pleased to find musicians "jamming" downstairs, and we were lucky to find a couple stools in a back corner of the pub. (A handsome border collie - obviously a regular at the bar - took up a comfortable bench near the front.) We ordered a couple pints of Guinness and settled in to enjoy the music. We soon did a double-take as we heard a deep voice begin to sing plaintively. It seemed too low for a female voice, but indeed it was a woman. Here's how the chorus went: Oh fare-thee-well, sweet Liza dear, and my own Derry town It breaks my heart to see friends part, for it's then that the teardrops fall; I'm on my way to Amerikay, will I e'er see my home once more? For now I leave my own true love on Paddy's green shamrock shore. I looked around while she sang. The crowd of 30-or-so people looked like locals. I wondered if anyone in the bar other than us two Americans had ancestors who'd really sailed away from the shamrock shore. After the song was over and the hearty applause died down, a man sitting near us came over and pointed to an old poster hanging above our table. The group featured in the photo, which appeared to be from the 1970s based on the clothing and hairstyles, was De Dannan. The man pointed at the young woman in the forefront of the picture and said, "that's her," as he nodded toward the singer in the bar. Wow... Later, when we got back to the hotel, we googled De Dannan and quickly discovered the soloist we'd heard was Dolores Keane. She was, in fact, a founding member and vocalist with De Dannan and later an Irish folk singer in her own right. She's struggled with depression, alcoholism and breast cancer but, according to a September 2014 Irish Times article was "storming back." And we were lucky enough to see her at The Crane. One of many high points on this trip.