The band “Iernis” concerns itself with the spread of traditional Celtic music in Greece, but also with the conservation and performance of Celtic songs which have not appeared often in discography. Many of them are in the form of a capella recordings by traditional singers, and they are re-performed according to the band’s aesthetics, often with the use of traditional Greek instruments. The opposite also occurs; in our CD there is the Thracian song “Φέτο το Καλοκαιράκι” played with Uilleann Pipes, tin whistles etc.
During the last few years, the band is organizing the Celtic Music Festival of Athens, aiming to bring together the Greek musicians that are in to Celtic music, as well as to introduce them to their audience.
George and manolis Galiatsos, founding members of the band, have co- operated with the legendary folk musician Andy Irvine on stage in Australia and Ireland and Chrysoula Kechagioglou will be present at the CD that his group Mozaik is about to release in 2017.
In the 7th of July 2017 the three of them will perform with Andy Irvine and Donal Lunny in the Festival of Paxoi.
A few things about the name:
“Iérnē” was the name given by the ancient Greek explorer Pytheas of Massilia to the place now known as Ireland, during his journeys in north-western Europe circa 320 BC, based on the preexisting local Proto-Goidelic name Īweriū, from which Éire is also derived. During Roman times the Alexandrian philosopher Claudius Ptolemy called it “Iouernia”, hence the Latin version Hibernia, and a town called Ivernis was mentioned in south-western Ireland, its people called Iverni. This name was derived from Proto-Indo-European *PiHwerjoHn, “fertile land”, and was once the common name for all the inhabitants of Ireland.