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Start your day off with a few jigs from the best trad Irish band ever (in my opinion). Dual fiddles lend them a unique sound.
The leader, Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh (Mary Mahoney for Anglos, daughter of the famous fiddler Frank Mahoney from County Donegal) also has a beautiful, ethereal voice, particularly when she sings in Irish.
And yes, she sings in English, too. The Lass of Glenshee:
Finally, just to pick things up, a few reels.
[Update a while later]
Jim Bennett links in comments to an emigration song. Here’s another by Andy Irvine (one of the founders of Planxty):
It’s interesting to hear an Irish musician play an octave mandolin. He also plays bouzouki. He bummed around in southeastern Europe quite a bit in the seventies, and brought a lot of Romanian folk songs back with him, including houras, which have a very complicated rhythm.
You might note at the end that the tune starts to segue into another, which is the second in the trilogy from the album on emigration, but it doesn’t seem to be on Youtube. Nor is the third, Edward Connors. As you’ll note from the lyrics, the reality of the New World didn’t always live up to the hype. Thousands of them crossed the Atlantic to flee The Great Hunger to find but a grave.