Mick Ryan’s Lament from the pen of Tim O’Brien. The tale of two brothers who leave Ireland in the hope of a new and better life only to find themselves fighting in yet another war. The tune break is a lovely Northumbrian waltz written by Archie Dagg.

The King’s Shilling may sound like a traditional song but it was in fact written by Ian Sinclair in the 1970’s. It’s a poignant anti-war song, from the woman’s perspective, The two tunes in this track are both traditional pieces- The Girl I Left Behind Me comes from the mid 1700s and is said to have been played when soldiers left for war or a naval vessel set sail. The Rakes Of Mallow was an 18th century group of Militia or Yeomen, from the Mallow area of North County Cork.

Broken Poached Eggs set. A lively set of three jigs written by three prolific composers from County Clare, County Derry and County Sligo respectively.

Keep Hauling is another of those tracks which you could be fooled into thinking is a Sea Shanty from hundreds of years ago but you’d be wrong. It was written by Andrew Cadie of the powerful duo Broom Bezzums. It’s ultimately a song of hope that whatever life throws at you, you can come through the other side of your troubled waters.

The Two Sisters is a song as old as the hills and with countless different versions. It’s a song of sibling rivalry and jealous murder and is thought to originate somewhere around Northumbria but extremely similar songs have been found throughout Europe, particularly in Scandinavia. The tune at the end is called The Fateful Head or Spootiskerry and is by Shetland fiddler Samuel (Ian) Burns.

What Would We Do If We Had No Money is a song well-known in the travelling communities. It captures the romance and the happy-go-lucky attitude of the travelling life without glossing over the poverty.

The Light In The Window, our album title track! The track moves through an unusual slow air into a hornpipe written by Joleen McLaughlin followed by The Golden Castle (Caisleán an Nór).

A Parcel Of Rogues is attributed to Robbie Burns. It’s a song that protests bitterly about the Union of Scotland and England in 1707 though you might say it’s sentiments are still quite current.

The Silent Majority was written in the 1970’s by Scotsman Lionel McLelland. The song is a rant against inaction by the so called silent majority, the people talked about but never able to be quoted- those that let events spiral until it's too late to do anything about it. The people in whose name things end up happening. The tune break is a version of the atmospheric traditional ‘Rowing From Islay To Uist’.

Caledonia is the iconic song from the pen of the amazing Scottish songwriter Dougie MacLean which has now equally been adopted by the Irish folk community as both Celtic nations have such a high degree of emigration and relate to his heart-felt lyrics.

The Close Shave is a song we learned from one of our favourite musicians, Andy Irvine, when we shared a stage with him on one of his trips to Nottingham. It seemed to fit perfectly with the brilliant tune ‘The Bluebells Are Blooming’ written by Irish whistle player Michael Dwyer.

Father Kelly’s set consists of three reels with some very neat little twists and turns to spice up the set- ‘Father Kelly’s’ (written by the man himself) followed by Donald Shaw’s ‘McLeod’s Farewell’ and with Adam Sutherland’s ‘The Road To Errogie’ making the set complete.

Galway Races is one of those songs that paints a real picture with words- what seems like a totally chaotic gathering is loosely held together around the focal point of horse racing but what does come through is that this is a whole community gathering, no barriers of religion or race. The Foxhunter’s Jig with it’s musical elements of the chase just seemed right to carry the song off into the distance.

Crooked Jack is a song by Dominic Behan which stands as a warning about the appalling working conditions for Irish and Scottish workers on a hydro dam project as well as their experience of working more broadly and the prejudices they struggled against.

Our final set of tunes is what we call the Rolling Waves set and is a beefy set of four jigs mixing the traditional with a couple of more recently penned pieces. The Connemara Jig is one we have played for many years and never recorded and it seemed a nice lead into the the lighter feel of Paddy Fahy’s before we hit the slightly quirky Rolling Waves before powering into Sonny Brogan’s.

The finale to the album is a very special song called The Exile’s Return written by Karan Casey and John Doyle. It tells the story of people leaving Ireland for the shores of America. More than one hundred thousand of them perished aboard the “coffin ships” that crossed the Atlantic. But one small ship never lost a passenger. That ship was the Jeanie Johnston and the story of that vessel left alight the hope that people would one day be reunited. The tune ‘Our Belfast Boy’ was written by Helen and Steve in memory of our dear friend, Neil Kelso. Always in our thoughts.