Traditional Irish music was meant mainly as the music of celebrations, including weddings and saint's days. Instruments such as the fiddle, flute, banjo, harp, uilleann pipes pipes, accordion and harmonica are the premier pieces used in this type of music. Traditional dance music includes jigs, reels and hornpipes. Songs are generally divided into two eight-bar strains that are played as many times as the musician wants. "Steps" are 16 measures with an eight bar strain for the left foot and one for the right, making it easy to dance to this type of music. Unaccompanied vocals are considered the ultimate in traditional singing and are generally performed alone in a high pitch. Caoineadh songs are traditional lament songs as "Caoineadh" translates to weeping/crying in Gaelic. The lyrics of these types of songs were often about the pain and sorrow of being forced to emigrate because of political or financial reasons.
Early Romantic era composers such as Thomas Moore and John Field are credited with the creation of the Nocturne form of classical Irish music. This form was developed by composer Frederic Chopin in the late 1800s. Choral music has little known history before the late 20th century. The national choir group of Ireland known as Anuna gained in popularity by singing in the late 1990s production of "Riverdance" starring Michael Flatley and Jean Butler. Among Anuna's group of 30 singers, 11 to 14 of are used for a performance.
Showbands were the popular music form in 1950s Ireland, often as a six- or seven-piece Dixieland dance band. Bands of this sort covered country, rock 'n' roll and jazz standards. In the late 20th, a fusion of traditional Irish music with rock and pop music developed, lending success to music acts like Clannad, Van Morrison and Sinead O'Connor. The New Age/Celtic fusions of Enya made her an international star. In the late 1970s and through the 1980s Irish rock bands dominated the airwaves because of the music of U2, Thin Lizzy, Bob Geldof and the Boomtown Rats, among others. There was a rise of pop Irish music in the 1990s because of the success of bands such as the Cranberries and the Corrs. Celtic Woman and Celtic Thunder are respective female and male singing groups that have achieved success in the 21st century because of a blend of traditional and pop/contemporary music.