To be honest, I don’t think that I should use the word “love”. Maybe “like” would be more suitable. My experience as a child was having Irish culture “rammed down my throat”. People resented that.
Certain factions hated all things British or foreign. I can understand why. After independance back in 1922, there was a big push to give us a distinctive identity.
My parents loved American films and music. As kids, we followed British soccer teams and rock music etc. And you’d turn the radio on and get bored hearing Irish music all the time. Back in the 1970s, I used to listen to Radio Luxembourg 208 to get some pop music. I first heard evangelical preaching when I’d mistakenly tune into Trans World Radio Monte Carlo, which was a Christian station, I used also hear Radio Moscow, so I could have become a communist – and this website would be called Hiberniacommunism 😀. I actually was a communist shortly before I became an evangelical Christian – but I was more into Trotsky than Stalin 😀.
Anyway, let’s get back to traditional Irish music. My pathway into that was two Irish rock groups – Thin Lizzy and Horslips – and here are two rock songs that have some connection to traditional Irish music:
As for purer traditional music, there’s some debate. As with music everywhere, you get outside influences. I remember hearing about people resenting the Dubliners using banjos – and discovering that some ancient Irish tunes were actually English 😀. They might even have originated in other parts of the world. Here’s a couple of Irish traditional songs:
And here are a couple of traditional Irish hymns:
Hibernia Gospel 