SNIPPET: There is a two-page interview in the 2005 issue of the yearly "Leitrim Guardian" magazine on singer Mary McPARTLAN's career that originally appeared in the September 2004 issue of "Irish Music" magazine. "Mary places much of her passion and inspiration firmly in her roots and her upbringing in Drumkeerin in Leitrim, a place that wasn't particularly musical or traditional and one where there wasn't a lot happening. A marginalized community, it was decimated in the seventies by emigration when it seemed like everybody left. Her home, however, was a musical one - her mother, an Omagh, Tyrone native, was always singing and her father loved music. Drumkeerin wasn't particularly musical but the neighbouring parishes yielded some well known names like Packie DUIGNAN, Jack DOLAN and Seamus HORAN. 'If we had a music teacher or even an instrument,' says Mary, 'I'm sure there would have been three if not four musicians in our house. Those were the days before the Comhaltas teaching network had reached that part of the country'" ... Look for her album, "The Holland Handkerchief.'" (The Holland Handkerchief itself was a square of Dutch linen made in Ireland in the 1800s by the Huguenot craftsmen who fled Europe and settled in small towns in Ireland.) You can read more about Mary and her career at www.marymcpartlan.com