LOWER River Inhabi-tants, Cape Breton Island-The journey by road on this most picturesque isle in the Canadian Maritimes is considerably easier these days than it would have been for generations of Irish people who settled this part of the world down through the years as part of the Celtic tribes up here. Some of the history and sentimentality was captured in one of the series of extraordinary concerts that make up the annual Celtic Colors International Festival that I am attending for the very first time.

Billed as the "A Touch of the Irish," the Monday night event brought together three distinctive acts that signify the diversity of talent assembled for this impressive gathering of the clans, so to speak, up here at the festival.

The Riverdale Community Center rests obscurely but conveniently near Route 104, a high grade Canadian highway down a dirt road, and like many a facility on the island provides a hospitable locale and intimate setting for enjoying a night of music or dance.

On the card this night was the Karan Casey Band from Ireland, Ron Hynes from Newfoundland and Fiona and Ciaran MacGillivray from Cape Breton Island themselves and you may be more familiar with them from their group the Cottars. All share an Irish heritage though raised in different Celtic climes that receive maximum exposure at this unique Festival.

The teenage MacGillivrays were up first, not necessarily in deference to their teenage years on a school night but more likely because as Cape Bretoners their act would be very familiar to the mostly local audience on hand this night.

The children of Cape Breton legend Allister MacGillivray, who toured with Ryan's Fancy for years, are really well schooled in performance technique which enhances their multitalented singing and musicianship. Ciaran played keyboards, guitar, bouzouki, flute and sang as did Fiona, who also showed a powerful tin whistle prowess and could handle the bodhran as well as the keyboards which seems second nature to Cape Bretoners.

Ciaran offered a bit of edge with a passively aggressive song he wrote called "If I Had a Rocket Launcher" evoking the pacifists' reaction to violence in the world, but the duo finished with a more predictable sentimental song they've recorded called "The Briar and the Rose."

They were followed by Ron Hynes, who was described as the "man of a thousand songs" from the very Irish enclave of Newfoundland that has served as an Irish reservoir similarly to the way the Scottish culture held fast here in Cape Breton. He is a classic singer songwriter whose view of the world often churns out songs that run the gamut of emotions from humorous to melancholic.

Even I was not aware that he wrote the oft-recorded "Sonny's Dream" recorded by so many Irish performers like Mary Black, Christy Moore and one of my favorites, the trio of Black, Delores Keane and Emmy Lou Harris for the Bringing it All Back Home TV documentary.

His original material can be comedic and poignant even in the same songs as we learned from a song he wrote about "A Good Dog Lost" or a parody about returning Yanks to Newfoundland who tiresomely made everyone aware of their experiences working in New York on the dangerous construction trades for tall buildings like the World Trade Center, as they threw their new found wealth and tales around the remote but tight-knit island community.

The Waterford songstress Casey took over after the interval, mixing her contemporary Irish and Scottish repertoire on her very first visit to Cape Breton. Accompanying her were Robbie Overson on guitar and Caoimhn Vallely on keyboards and special guest Liz Knowles on fiddle on her third and final appearance as part of the Celtic Colors extravaganza.

There are many Irish settlers on the island and many would be familiar with her work through a weekly one hour radio program called The Music of Ireland hosted by the emcee this evening, Paul Davis, originally from Larne, Co. Antrim who founded the show 25 years ago (www.themusicofireland.com).

Casey performed "Distant Shore," "Another Day," "Chasing the Sun" and Robbie Byrnes's "A Fond Kiss" among other selections. Very much a staple of her performances are anti-war songs in the folk-song tradition, and she gave us two in "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya" and "The King's Shilling" penned by Scotsman Iain Sinclair some 30 years ago.

As usual, she was dismissive of the current occupant of the White House - which didn't seem to bother the crowd at all -- for his military escapades. She indicated that she is headed towards D.C. later this week where she can engage President George W. Bush in closer proximity, though it will have to be from the safety of the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday, Wednesday, October 10.

She also will appear at the National Folk Festival in Richmond, Virginia on October 12 and 13 and finish with an upstate New York gig in East Meredith, New York (www.karancasey.com).

The show closed with a finale with the performers singing the aforementioned "Sonny's Dream" written over 30 years ago as one of those signature songs for a singer-songwriter like Hynes.

The audience easily took over the chorus depicting the loneliness of a sailor's wife and son who are left to fend for themselves in times less rosier than now in Atlantic Canada, especially in the autumnal glow of Celtic Colors.