Founded in Dublin in 1962, The Chieftains (Paddy Moloney, Kevin Conneff, Sean Keane and Matt Molloy) championed an authentic Irish sound that quickly earned them an international reputation. After recording four best selling albums, the group garnered a whole new audience in 1975 with the soundtrack to the Stanley Kubrick film Barry Lyndon, which featured their first hit single, "Women Of Ireland" and earned them an Oscar. Extensive international touring followed, as well as an extraordinary string of genre-defining albums, including such standout as Bonaparte's Retreat, Boil The Breakfast Early and Chieftains In China. In 1992 they recorded the double Grammy-winning Another Country, a groundbreaking collaboration with such American country and bluegrass legends as Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson and Chet Atkins and ten years later they returned to Music City to continue their creative cross-pollination with the above mentioned Down The Old Plank Road and Further Down The Old Plank Road, featuring Vince Gill, Lyle Lovett, Alison Krauss and a host of others.

The Chieftains have always strived to explore musical ideas and their journeys have taken them and Irish Music to many parts of the world. In 1996, this journey lead them to led them to Galicia and this resulted in Santiago. It is an exploration of Galician music and its relationship to Irish traditional and it received a Grammy in 1997 for best World Music album. The story of the Chieftains was put into print in an authorized biography by John Glatt in 1997 with an audiobook version released in 1999. The Chieftains have continued to work with a number of different artists, including Joan Osborne, Bonnie Raitt, The Corrs, Diana Krall and many others throughout the 1990s. They also received a Grammy in 1999 in the Best Traditional Folk Category for their work on music for the documentary, The Long Journey Home: The Irish in America. The album featured collaborations and several new compositions as it documents the Irish diaspora and its bittersweet legacy with special attention paid to An Górta Mor (The Great Hunger) and the resulting mass exodus due to the famine up through their acceptance in American society. Their work on this soundtrack gave the Chieftains their first Emmy award.

After a number of collaboration albums, the Chieftains returned to a strongly traditonal album, Water From The Well. The album garnered another grammy nomination for them in 2000. The audio recording of their biography by Nanci Griffith recieved a Grammy nomination in 2000 in the best spoken word recording category. Paddy Moloney and The Chieftains were awarded with one of the most prestigious traditional music awards in Ireland. On December 17, 2000 in Dublin, The Chieftains were honoured with a lifetime achievement award from The Irish Music Magazine. An honor that recognized their work to Irish music and Irish culture. The release of a compilation album, The Wide World Over, released in 2001 is a cross section of their 40-year career in making music. The ranks of the Chieftains changed in 2001, when Martin Fay decided to semi-retire from the group and limit his appearances to gigs in Ireland. The horrific terrorist attacks also affected the Chieftains as it saw them performing at a memorial service in New York for a friend who was killed at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Paddy Moloney was given permission to visit Ground Zero in March 2002, where he played a piece on his whistle for the rescue workers at the site. The group in recent years have been honored for their contributions to Irish music with the bestowing of a lifetime achievement award at the BBC2 Folk Awards in 2002, which was broadcast in the British Isles and on the Internet. Their performance in awards program also featured a set with two of the founding members of the Chieftains, Seán Potts and Michael Tubridy.

The Chieftains recieved tribute from Ireland's president, Mary McAleese, in December 2002 for their contributions to Irish music and culture. This year also saw the Chieftains return to film work with two tracks featured on the Martin Scorsese film, Gangs of New York starring Leonardo diCaprio, Daniel Day Lewis, and Cameron Diaz. In 2003, The Chieftains ventured back on the road to promote Down the Old Plank, the first time without Derek Bell. The Chieftains recently held two concerts in Ireland to raise funds to sponsor a scholarship at the University of Limerick in memory of Derek Bell to assist young musicians.

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