Mark O’Leary

Mark O’Leary is a Pennsylvania native raised on a steady diet of the Clancy Brothers, The Fureys, and The Chieftains. As a teenager he picked up an old Stella guitar, and by his twenties had embarked on an ill-advised career as a folk musician. He moved to Boston in 1980 and made his living playing music in the then-thriving Irish pub scene. He formed a number of forgettable groups, all of which eventually dissolved due to various combinations of matrimony and fisticuffs. But the musical education he gleaned during those years has stayed with him through the intervening decades, and Celtic music remains his first love.

In 2019 Mark joined Dinah Mellin and Denya Levine as co-host of The Fiddle and the Harp. He also hosts Lisdoonvarna, WOMR’s newest Celtic music program.