The flute is one of the central sounds of Irish music and has recently gained in popularity to the extent that more people now play Irish music on the flute than ever before. The wooden simple-system flute has a wide range of tone, volume and colour available to it and the consequent flexibility of expression has obviously added to its attraction. It also breaks down into a handy-sized case which box and banjo players can only dream of.

The basic Irish flute is a simple system six hole flute tuned such that the lowest playable pitch (all holes closed) is the D above middle C, and the instrument will play a D scale (D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#) as the holes are uncovered sequentially to shorten the resonant length of the pipe. The basic flute can be played in the key signatures of D and G without difficult cross fingerings, which is sufficient for a large variety of traditional Irish melodies.

The basic flute may be embellished with the addition of keys (typically metal, mounted to wooden blocks) used to play pitches which would require cross fingerings or be impossible to produce on the basic flute. Four keys (short F, G#, Bb and Eb) are required to produce a fully chromatic instrument. Two keys (long F and high C) can be added to improve playability, and two more keys (low C and C#) can be added to extend the range of the instrument to middle C.