Fiddler Michael Coleman grew up in Ireland's County Sligo, but at age 20 he emigrated to New York, and it was in Manhattan that he made his series of brilliant 78s. When those recordings made their way back to Ireland, they awakened a nearly dormant interest in the country's traditional music and paved the way for the full-fledged revival of the '60s. Since Coleman's day, many of the best and most innovative Irish folk records have been made on this side of the Atlantic. It has happened again with Hard New York Days, the third and best album yet from America's best Irish folk band, Celtic Thunder.

This D.C. quintet is best known for Terry Winch's sing-along immigration ballad, "When New York Was Irish," which in recent years has become as ubiquitous on St. Patrick's Day as shamrocks. Winch has written a lovely sequel for the new album. "Saints" is a nostalgic lament for the days in the Bronx when "we grew up in candy stores, grew old in bars" and it receives a lustrous soprano treatment by Laura Murphy. She is equally impressive on the antiwar fable, "Crow on the Cradle" and Winch's romantic reverie about boating on the Chesapeake, "Moonlight Cruise."

What's most impressive about Celtic Thunder is how the band balances the songs with the instrumental dance tunes which are the heart of the Celtic tradition. Flutist Linda Hickman, accordionist Winch and fiddler Dave Abe are all solid players but what separates this band from its many competitors is the music's hefty bottom. Pianist Regan Wick and percussionist Jesse Winch (Terry's big brother) lend a driving oomph to the jigs, reels and polkas, and Wick, a champion step-dancer, uses his shoes as a rat-a-tat-tat percussion instrument on "Planxty Drury." Best of all, though, is Terry Winch's irresistbly catchy heartbreak ballad, "After the Rain," which is just crying out to be turned into a pop country hit by Kathy Mattea or Nanci Griffith. --Geoffrey Himes