My Talented Cousin - Colleen Raney

 I have a wonderfully talented cousin, once removed (that's a 2nd cousin), one of the youngest of my first cousin Pat Raney and his wife Barbara, who have oodles of wonderful kids. Colleen's talent as a singer in the Irish folk tradition is a wonder to hear. I really didn't know about her (Pat and Barbara live in Seattle and Colleen lives in Portland, until I was peppering Pat on Facebook about our Irish ancestor (who came to the U.S. about 1730 from what is now Northern Ireland) because Jay and I are going to Ireland and Northern Ireland.  He mentioned that Colleen had studied at the National University of Ireland at Galway - and that she was a professional singer. What??? So, I googled her and then I ordered her three available albums from her website.  What a delight she is to listen to.

Here is a sample of her extraordinary voice, the first song on her album, "Here This is Home."

You can hear more of her songs on YouTube. Just look her up by her name, Colleen Raney.