DE DANNAN
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DE DANNAN (originally Dé Danann) is an Irish folk music group. They were formed by Frankie Gavin (fiddle), Alec Finn (guitar, bouzouki), Johnny “Ringo” McDonagh (bodhrán) and Charlie Piggott (banjo) as a result of sessions in Hughes’s Pub in An Spidéal, County Galway, subsequently inviting Dolores Keane (vocals) to join the band. The late fiddler Mickey Finn is also acknowledged to have been a founder member.
They named themselves Dé Danann after the legendary Irish tribe Tuatha Dé Danann. In 1985, they changed the spelling of the group from “Dé Danann” to “De Dannan” for reasons that have never been made clear. However, since 2010, Finn & McDonagh have recorded and performed with a line-up named “De Danann”, and, since 2012, Gavin has recorded and performed with another line-up named “De Dannan”.