by Sean Smith
Special to BostonIrish.com

It has been a tough spring for many Irish/Celtic musicians, their performance and teaching schedules decimated by the COVID-19 pandemic — and the summer doesn’t look to be much better.

But a recently launched online initiative, whose leadership team has a strong Boston connection, aims to provide support for artists involved in folk and traditional music by giving them means and ideas to promote themselves and build their following.

Nestled in the northeast corner of Jamaica Plain, right near the Angell Animal Medical Center, the Brendan Behan Pub prides itself as a “cozy gathering place.” Its website prominently displays a quote from the namesake Irish author and legendary raconteur identifying the necessities of life as “s

Marla Fibish, “The Bright Hollow Fog” •

In 1938, the year before he died, preeminent Irish poet William Butler Yeats spelled out in his valedictory poem “Under Ben Bulben” explicit instructions for the epitaph he wished to have cut into the slab of local limestone that would mark his grave: