The year 2002 saw the first Saint Patrick's Day parade in Kyoto. It coincided with many other such parades around the world, including ones in Tokyo, in Seoul, and in Singapore. Japan has dozens of Irish pubs with names such as Murphy's, Ryan's, or Paddy's, and many of them feature Japanese musicians playing live Irish music in weekly seisiains. In October of 2003 the current incarnation of the Riverdance stage show appeared on its third tour in Nagoya, Osaka, Tokyo, Sendai, Hiroshima, and Fukuoka. Japanese enthusiasts of Irish culture might have been able to catch Riverdance if they weren't already tied up by a harp festival, Irish traditional music camps, set dancing classes, productions of plays by Irish dramatists in Japanese and English, poetry readings in Irish and English with and without Japanese translation, or visits to the 250seat Finnegan's Bar and Grill at Universal Studios JapanTM in Osaka. Staying in contact with each other by means of the internet, posters, and performances, Japan's Irish music enthusiasts have ample opportunities to experience a type of Irish culture in diasporic relocation. Consumers of Irish music and those interested in Irish culture generally might be surprised to find Irish music in Japan, or - in particular - to find Japanese people deeply drawn toward Irish music, culture, and notions of identity. Yet the rules of citizenship for the Irish are so generous, compared to many nations, that anyone - including a Japanese person - may be an Irish citizen provided that one grandparent was born in Ireland. This would extend citizenship to the likes of Che Guevara, Muhammad Ali, Tony Blair, Alex Haley, or Alfred Hitchcock. This article focuses primarily on Japanese consumers of Irish music, acknowledging, though, that the peripatetic Irish have established lively diasporic communities across the globe. I was a professor-in-residence at a branch campus of Kobe University in the Kansai area of Japan, teaching American music history.' Prior to my arrival I had sent messages by e-mail to the Japan branch of Comhaltas Ceolt6iri Eireann, the international association of Irish music enthusiasts. Within a few