The mandolin-banjo is a hybrid between a mandolin and a banjo. It has eight strings organized in pairs and tuned GDAE just like a mandolin, but rather than a soundboard it has a drum head like any other banjo.

The banjolin is a "soprano banjo" - tuned a fifth higher than the tenor banjo and with a much shorter scale and smaller head.

In reality the only difference between the two is that the mandolin-banjo has double and the banjolin has single strings (just like the difference between an ordinary acoustic and a twelvestring guitar), and the two names are in fact often used interchangeably for the same instrument today.

As a solo instrument in Irish music, the banjolin can be really effective. Just like the Irish tenor, it uses "fiddle tuning" - GDAE, and unlike its big brother it's even tuned in the same octave - and has more or less the same scale length - as the fiddle. So, anything you can play on a fiddle, you can do just as easy on the mandolin-banjo (and on the mandolin for that matter).

Even so, the mandolin-banjo is rather rare in Ireland. Michael Gaffney seems to be the only notable player who used it from time to time.
There are two likely reasons for that:

Volume
The small banjos have rather soft voices and has problem being heard in a relatively loud band.
Tone
Properly played a good mandolin-banjo sounds wonderful, but - well it doesn't really sound like a banjo, or at least not like how people expect a banjo to sound.

But if you have a mandolin-banjo and want to use it for Irish music, go for it! It'll give your band a slightly original sound without going to far from the roots.

There are no lessons for the mandolin-banjo here, but anything you can play on a mandolin or on and Irish tenor banjo works on the mandolin-banjo too.

The mandolin-banjo and the banjolin

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