NASA astronaut plays 100-year-old Irish flute while floating in outer space

17 March 2025, 11:44

NASA astronaut plays flute to mark St Patrick's Day

A NASA astronaut with Irish heritage gave a musical ode to the Emerald Isle from the International Space Station, in celebration of St Patrick’s Day.

St Patrick’s Day is celebrated all around the world. But did you know it is literally celebrated around the earth?

On the International Space Station, which orbits Earth around 16 times a day, Irish American astronaut and Expedition 27 Flight Engineer Catherine Coleman played a pair of Irish melodies on a 100-year-old flute and a tin whistle while floating in the ISS on Saint Patrick’s Day in 2011.

The flute belonged to Matt Molloy and the tin whistle to Paddy Moloney, who are both members of the Irish music group The Chieftains.

“Happy St Patrick’s Day, and welcome to the International Space Station,” Coleman introduced the video, which was published by NASA. “In my family we are a quarter Irish on each side, and somehow that adds up to much more than a half. And I wanted to bring something up to space with me that would recognise my Irish heritage. And since I’m also a flute player, I thought, why not Irish flutes?

“I got to know the renowned band The Chieftains, and I asked them if they would mind if I borrowed some of their instruments and brought them on a little business trip. I might not have mentioned that the trip would be six months long, and the flutes would have travelled several million miles before they came home....

“I’d like to reassure them that their treasures are just fine, they’re actually never far from home, because we fly over Ireland several times a day!”

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“This lovely wooden flute belongs to Mr Matt Molloy of The Chieftains, and I’ve really loved having it up here. It’s just a beautiful instrument. And here in my pocket is a tin whistle from Paddy Moloney.

“Now even though I’m not a professional flute or whistle player, I’ve really felt privileged to have these instruments up in space with me. The penny whistle fits in my pocket and I can take it out whenever I have time to play. And just looking at Matt’s flute floating around in the space station… it’s 100 years old, and I think the contrast of the old and the new, you wouldn’t think it but it’s exactly the right thing to float around in the middle of an orbiting space station.

“St Patrick’s Day is a day when people all over the earth recognise their Irish heritage, and now we’re doing that from space as well. Happy St Patrick’s Day from the International Space Station,” Coleman concluded.

Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, is thought to have grown up in Britain in the fifth century and to have first come to Ireland as a slave kidnapped by the Romans. Once set free, he became a priest and returned to the country as a missionary.

It is believed he would use shamrocks, now forever associated with St Patrick’s Day celebrations, to explain the idea of the Holy Trinity to pagans.

17 March marks the day St Patrick would have died around the year 461 AD. He is believed to have died in Downpatrick, where his grave now is, by the Down Cathedral.

St Patrick’s Day is a public holiday in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and an abundance of parades, street parties and céilis – traditional Irish gatherings involving dancing and music – take place all over the world, including this special musical moment from 250 miles overhead...