It’s the day before St. Patrick’s Day. I don’t drink alcohol, so I won’t be involved in any green beer challenge or sampling any Irish whiskey.

Instead, I will be selecting music for my radio show.

Bill Fischer in Ireland, 2011

This is no small feat, given the huge selection of music I have to choose from to celebrate the Auld Sod.

Yes, my heritage is full-blown Irish or Scots-Irish. The Irish part comes from my mother, whose maiden name was Dwyer. I’ve been searching Ancestry.com for her relatives, without much success. They came in through Boston’s Castle Island, although we think some came through “the Back Door,” which translates to illegally, probably through Canada.

My father’s Scots-Irish ancestors came through Virginia. The Scots-Irish were most likely from Northern Ireland, possibly Presbyterian Scottish, who were given land by the British government, and moved into Northern Ireland (counties of Antrim, Down, Armagh, Derry, Londonderry, Tyrone, and Fermanagh). My father’s family emigrated to southwestern Virginia. I have looked into Ancestry.com for more information about them as well, with little or no success, vis-a-vis when they entered this country.

My Ancestry.com DNA profile indicates that my background is all Irish and Scots-Irish except for five percent English and two percent Norwegian. That makes sense, since the Norwegians brought red hair to Ireland, and the last name of Adams, which was my father’s, is a British name.

So what am I getting at?

I love traditional music. My father introduced me and my siblings to the music of the Appalachian mountains and people like the Carter Family when we were born. He also loved the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. My mother, on the other hand, told me time and time again, “We’re not Irish. We’re Americans.” That didn’t stop me from investigating traditional Irish music in Boston’s coffeehouses and at folk festivals in the 1960s.

That leads me to these recommendations.

My favorite recording of “Danny Boy” is by De Dannan, with Tommy Fleming on lead vocals.

Tommy Makem’s “Red is the Rose” is my preferred recording of that.

Check out “St. Brendan’s Fair Isle” by Mick Moloney and Eugene O’Donnell for a terrific song (written by Jimmy Driftwood, the same guy who wrote “Tennessee Stud,” but this one is a terrific fantasy song about Ireland)

Patrick Street recorded my favorite version of “The Rocky Road to Dublin.”

The Chieftains and Ry Cooder did an incredible CD about the San Patricios (Irish immigrants who fought in the Mexican Army against the United States Army). The Irish stood with Mexicans because they were both Catholics.

Songs about emigration? Check out Karan Casey and John Doyle, as well as Cherish the Ladies.

If you want any other specific recommendations, let me know.

The only thing I cannot recommend is beer or liquor. I don’t partake of the barley grain. I will, instead, immerse myself in music. You can’t get arrested for driving under the influence of Irish music.

The Adams Bar and Restaurant, Lahinch, Ireland, 2011