Bill Whelan (born May 22, 1950) is the Irish composer who composed Riverdance, a piece for the interval of the Eurovision Song Contest. It was a ten-minute display of traditional Irish dancing that eventually became a full-length stage production and spawned a worldwide craze for Irish dancing and celtic music.

Whelan is a native of Limerick, and was educated at Crescent College, University College Dublin and the King's Inns. He worked as a pianist for The Waterboys during their Fisherman's Blues sessions. His work appears on a second album from those sessions, Too Close to Heaven. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.