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Four Men and a Dog

Irish traditional band

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 16, 2026
Entity authorityQ3326999 ↗
Source-derived summary

Four Men and a Dog is an Irish traditional band that emerged in 1990 during the Belfast Folk Festival. The band plays Irish traditional music with a mixture of different other genres, including rock, jazz, blues, bluegrass, swing, salsa, polka and even rap. They originally had their name because of former singer Mick Daly's nickname; "The Black Dog". Daly was later replaced with Kevin Doherty. Other original members included Gino Lupari, Donal Murphy, Brian McGrath, and Cathal Hayden.

Their debut album, Barking Mad (1991), was granted Folk Roots magazine's "Album of the Year" award, the first time that an Irish group had that honour. Line-up changes ensued before in 1993, Shifting Gravel, their second album, was not well received by critics nor the public. Their displeasure was centered around Doherty's pop/rock leanings, which overwhelmed the earlier pure Celtic undertones of the group.

They met The Band in 1994, and recorded their album Doctor A's Secret Remedies (1995) at Levon Helm's studio in Woodstock, New York, with musical guests Garth Hudson and Randy Ciarlante. Rick Danko also joined Four Men and a Dog on a UK tour where they played some of The Band's classics.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Four Men and a Dog” as irish traditional band. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1990, 1991, 1993, 1994—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Four, Irish and traditional can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as irish traditional band. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3326999. VIAF identifies the subject as 159632309. The Library of Congress control number is no2003081464. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1990, 1991, 1993 and 1994.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Four Men and a Dog primary sources, Four Men and a Dog archive and Four research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Four Men and a Dog” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.