The 123 Paahto & The Bull

• 1 The Limestone Rock / John Naughton's / O'Reilly's Greyhound 02:56
• 2 The Yellow Wattle / The Humours of Ballyloughlin 03:06
• 3 The Battle of Aughrim 05:01
• 4 Nellie, Your Favour, I'm Afraid, I Will Not Gain/Tom Moylan's Frolic 03:38
• 5 Planxty George Brabazon 03:21
• 6 Eibhlín Gheal Chiúin Ní Chearbhaill 04:09
• 7 The Boyne Hunt / Paddy's Gone to France / The Abbey Reel 03:15
• 8 Bonaparte Crossing the Alps 03:49
• 9 The Tenpenny Piece / Elizabeth Kelly's Delight 03:53
• 10 Britches Full of Stitches / Terry Teahan's 04:46
• Total Runtime 37:54

Info for The 123

Paahto & The Bull, the guitar duo project of Patrick “Paahto” Cummins and John Francis Flynn, will release their debut album The 123 this year via Claddagh Records on August 21st, and play Whelan’s on Wednesday October 28th.

The album is called The 123 after the Dublin bus route – “The 123 was the bus that went from John’s road in Marino all the way to Paahto’s road in Drimnagh at the opposite end of the route.”

Cummins and Flynn have been playing together since 2011, first cutting their teeth at The Maple Hotel on Dublin’s Gardiner Street before going on to co-found Irish traditional group Skipper’s Alley in 2013. The pair have remained close musical partners ever since, including a run with the short-lived, more progressive-leaning project Once There Was A King.

Paahto & The Bull began during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the two started experimenting with music written for two guitars, drawing on Cummins’ interest in bluegrass flat-picking and Flynn’s own distinctive approach to accompaniment. What started as an Instagram page for posting rough recordings gradually grew into a proper project, with the pair working towards a full album with the help of Brendan Jenkinson and Ben Rawlins.

Despite both being multi-instrumentalists and singers, the project sticks to a strict two-guitar setup, a deliberate choice in keeping with the duo’s approach: “This is what we play. This is how we play. And this is what we are going to play.” It’s also a departure from what people might expect from two players so associated with Irish trad, a banjo-and-guitar pairing would have been the obvious choice, but the two guitars format reflects the kind of lateral, progressive thinking that’s defined their playing together for the past 15 years.

Paahto & The Bull

Paahto & The Bull
is the guitar-duo project of Patrick "Paahto" Cummins and John Francis Flynn. Having met and played together since 2011 and having cut their teeth at The Maple Hotel on Dublin's Gardiner Street, Paahto and John helped form the Irish traditional group Skipper's Alley in 2013 and would remain long-term sparring partners and an integral cog in Dublin's traditional and folk music communities. Once There Was A King was another of their musical endeavours which reached into a progressive musical space in its short-lived timespan. However, as with any collaboration between these two players, Paahto & The Bull is beyond a meeting of two musical minds and encompasses a very personal element.

During the covid-19 pandemic, the pair experimented with music on two guitars inspired by Paahto's interest in bluegrass flat-picking and John's very original approach to accompaniment. Beginning with just an Instagram page to post some amateur material, Paahto & The Bull decided to take the project more seriously and gradually worked towards recording an album with the help of Brendan Jenkinson and Ben Rawlins. The ethos for the duo has always been to focus on simplicity and only features the musicians playing their guitars despite them both being multi- instrumentalists and singers.

The music of Paahto & The Bull is a very honest reflection of the unique kind of sound that Cummins and Flynn have consistently created with each other over the past fifteen years and, although one might have expected their initial release to be a banjo/guitar product, the lateral thinking that went into choosing a guitar duet is also very in line with the particular flavour of progressive that these lads strive for. The statement is firm: "This is what we play. This is how we play. And this is what we are going to play." Having signed with Claddagh Records in late 2025, Paahto & The Bull will be releasing their debut album during 2026.

This album contains no booklet.