Witnessing a performance of Leahy is like getting caught in a storm of music, color and movement.

The members of the eight-person band share more than music: they are brothers and sisters. Even on recordings, the group’s raw energy and sheer joy in the music come through. Band members Donnell, Agnes, Angus, Doug, Erin, Frank Jr., Maria and Siobheann didn’t have to look far for inspiration.

Their father, Frank Leahy Sr., whose grandfather immigrated from Mitchelstown, Co. Cork in 1825, is an accomplished fiddle player. Their mother, Julie, is a champion Canadian step dancer.

The family’s three-bedroom farmhouse in Lakefield, Ontario, had one piano and three fiddles, so all the siblings, while beginning on the piano, quickly mastered the fiddle also.<

The Leahy family’s legacy of music is sure to continue into the next generation thanks to the marriage of the band’s fiddle player, Donnell Leahy, to Cape Breton native and fellow master fiddler Natalie MacMaster.

The couple has two children, Michael Joseph and Mary Frances.

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