Count John McCormack sang, famously, of the "little people" playing all night around the thorn tree "that grows beyond Clogheen". Today the fairy band - if they haven't long ago fled to Tir na nOg - might well be beating out a rhythm on goatskin, for the same south Tipperary village has become a major production centre for traditional bodhrans.
The local craft industry is just one of many which have grown out of the huge revival of interest, at home and abroad, in traditional Irish music.
The growth of Tipperary Music Ltd, started by a Dutchman married to a local woman, demonstrates how it can sometimes be easier to get a small craft business off the ground in a rural setting than in the high-pressure, high-cost commercial world of the city. Klaas Huizena had never made a bodhran, but had gained considerable experience of the Irish music scene and its international markets. After moving to Ireland, he worked as an export manager with the music publishing company, Waltons.
His wife, Bernie Pyne, a marketing graduate, was from Clogheen, and when the couple decided to move to the countryside to set up their own business, it was the natural place to look for a suitable premises.
In the once-thriving market town at the foot of the Knockmealdown Mountains, they acquired the historic premises of the former Globe Hotel. It had been a stagecoach inn, an important link in the national network of services for both mail and passengers established by Charles Bianconi in 1817.
Klaas converted the historic inn's stables into a workshop and, with help from FAS and Tipperary Enterprise Board, began his bodhran-manufacturing enterprise.
That tentative beginning was five years ago. Today Tipperary Music produces and exports 10,000 bodhrans a year to 10 countries. The couple had observed that traditional music followers, both Irish and foreign, often developed an irresistible impulse to own a bodhran, usually with the vague intention of trying their hand at the deceptively simple-looking art of playing it.
The apparently insatiable international appetite for bodhrans has surprised everyone. It is partly explained by the fact that the instrument is easily carried home, and when the fascination of experimenting with it wears off it can always be hung on the wall as a nostalgic souvenir of memorable "sessions" in the past.
This summer the couple have opened a stylish visitor centre and cafe beside the an workshop, where visitors can see the instrument-making process in action and browse through a selection of music-related publications and crafts. A cobbled courtyard is being restored, and later they plan to organise workshops where experts will instruct the serious aficionados in the rudiments of bodhran playing.
Considerable expertise is required in the hand-crafting of bodhrans. The purpose-built frames are made on contract in the nearby village of Newcastle, Co Tipperary, from a birch plywood.
As there are not enough goats available in Ireland to supply the volume of skins required, goatskins are imported from Asia and North Africa. "We use the best grade of goatskin available for our bodhrans, which are first glued, and, after drying, are tacked for extra strength," Klaas explains. He uses a technique unique to Ireland which allows stress to be applied all round the rim, ensuring a strong glue contact.
A series of traditional designs has been developed by the Clogheen company, and these are silkscreen-printed by hand, using a special waterproof ink.
The 35-year-old Dutchman, who was first inspired by the distinctive sound of a bodhran played by an Irish ballad group in Holland, used to work in the independent film sector in his native country.
He retains a connection with the Netherlands by regularly broadcasting a magazine programme on the Dutch Radio 5 on events in Ireland.
The couple have a 16-monthold daughter, Aimee, and are happy that she will be brought up in the relaxed and close-knit community of Clogheen, where the population is just over 400.