It was St. Patrick's night, 1997. We were sitting in Zach's Pub having been together for about 6 months, and in front of us lay an hour's set and four beers. We'd met at about 5pm because we were worried our set list wasn't long enough and we needed to practise something.
"And what exactly do you call yourselves, then?" Enquired the landlord, Karel Zach.
"Nothing, yet, " we replied.
"Right then, I christen you 'Poitin'. "
"'Poitin'? What's that when it's at home?"
"It's an Irish drink- a very strong spirit. And it also means 'living water'", said Karel.
"All right", agreed Poitin.
And so it was. From then on, everything changed... We didn't need to worry about the fact we didn't have an hour-long set list, and instead of 4 beers we ordered 10. And then we found out that'poitin' isn't pronounced 'poyteen', but 'patcheen' (which sounds like a very rude word in Czech), which Karel had cunningly concealed from us at the time of our christening.

Not many of those original 4 survive in today's line-up - actually, only Otik(Jaroslav Machacek), fiddler, founder and leader of the band is left. The others were Eva Sustrova, Jindrich Fiala, guitar, and his girlfriend, Petra Blechova, singer. Later, Jana Studena sang and fluted with us for a year. Also at that time they befriended Otik's former room-mate in university halls and fiddler with the band Tydlidum, Antonin(Jirka Vysata). Fiddling was Otik's job, but after in-depth discussion Antonin remained a member of the band and in time took up plucking the Celtic harp. Before that, however, another talented musician named Tonda Muzik tured up. Initially engaged as the beater of the bodhran, it turned out that he could lend his musical talents to anything that came to hand.

We then started searching for our own special sound. The basics were 2 fiddles, a flute and drum - we were missing harp and pipes. We tried all sorts of attachments to the fiddles to get a pipe sound, but discovered a fine alternative to pipes was the accordion. So we started to make advances towards Lada Pohorely, an accordionist guaranteed to put on a professional show.

Instead of the harp, we substituted the guitar. Picking up the baton for a short time Petr Kasak Holecek, and after him, our present guitarist, Jakub Siegl, master of DADGAD tuning.

His outgoing personality means Jakub's got a lot of friends who also enjoy the pleasures of the muses - and thus arrived Honza Brabec and Kristyna Frankova. Tyna played recorders(and also the sax) and sang,and together with Evicka formed our rich and clear wind section - sometimes joined by Honza on the tin whistle. After Tyna left for Prague and Eva left to have a baby, Helena Markova stepped into their shoes with her jazz background and saxophone and flutes and whistles. Helena also eventually left for Prague, but not before she'd recorded Hot Days with us. We now have Hana Cirova and Sasha Shantorova on whistles and flutes. Apart from the whistle, Honza's main instrument is the bouzouki - similar to the mandolin but an octave deeper, which came to Ireland via Greece and the Balkans. Honza also plays the banjo on a number of jigs and hornpipes.

From the beginning we had wanted someone able to sing Irish ballads in the original language, and so onto the scene came Jeremy King and Neige Pruvost. So, suddenly, we could add English, Scottish, Irish and even French and Breton songs to our repertoire! Neige and Jeremy exchanged central roles and between the songs compered in Franco-Czech or Anglo-Czech respectively. Since Neige returned to France, Jeremy has had to hold the fort centre stage, and whereas previously he was free to jump up and down and dance around with the audience, he's now, since Tonda's departure, limited to sitting firmly on stage banging out rhythm on the bodhran.

Our newest member is Dick Savage, singer-songwriter, member of indie-rock band Cold Feet and didge player extraordinaire. He plays the didge with us and spoons and backing vocals.

Apart from Neige and Jeremy, Tyna and Jakub also took turns at the mike. Not only did they sing traditional Czech folk songs, but they also lent their vocal talents to English and French songs, too.

Now we were missing only harp and bagpipes, so our search continued. Jirka was tempted to take up the small cittern - a la Alain Stivell, but finally he built his own harp and endlessly held us up with his never-ending tuning sessions! So, at last we had a harp, and, who knows, may be, one day, we'll have bagpipes too...