[posternutbag]

As someone who is principally a mandolinist, I have been accused of recommending instruments that are far too expensive. In this case, there is no need. The Pogues, Dropkick Murphy, The Levellers, Celtic punk bands like that aren’t looking for sparkling mandolin tone, so a relatively inexpensive instrument with a pickup will work fine.

I would suggest an Eastman 305 (or 304 if you like the oval hole look) and a K&K pickup. Again, if you were interested in acoustic tone, I might go in another direction, but really, an Eastman 305 (or 304) has fine acoustic tone. My best friend has one, I would gig it without a second thought.

You will need a pickup. I played mandolin in a trio with an acoustic/electric guitar and an EBG, both played through amps. I tried to play through a mic in our first show and was all but inaudible. I switched to an old Breedlove Quartz with an internal pickup to solve the volume problem.

And that’s the thing, once you start amplifying a mandolin (especially through a pickup), a lot of the tonal nuances are lost; it’s just a trade off you have to be willing to accept.