By Gregory Daly

Photographs by James Fraher

Published by Bogfire, this book contains biographies along with black and white photographs featuring over one hundred traditional musicians from counties Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon and Mayo. Through the author’s unique personal and musical connection to the musicians of the North Connacht region, he uses a conversational interview style to draw out their stories, revealing both the individual and collective experience within that tradition.

Musician/writer Fintan Vallely states in the book foreword:

“As the story of the music self-identity of this region is tenderly revealed through a respectful, unhurried text and clear, contemplative images, the reader slips into step with the mutually complementary, researched, written words and the eye of the camera.”

Songs from the repertoire of Tom Lenihan, Knockbrack, Miltown Malbay, County Clare. Collected and edited by Tom Munnelly with music transcriptions by Marian Deasy. 

Tom Lenihan of Knockbrack, Miltown Malbay, Co. Clare (1905–1990), was a farmer. Though English is the language of his area, it is deeply coloured by Irish idiom and constructions as can be seen in the many hundreds of pages of lore and song, which were collected from him throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Although Tom was a rich source of Clare tradition, he was primarily known as a singer. In addition to songs of Irish origin he performed older international ballads along with local songs; all were grist to his unbiased mill.

The fifty-two pieces reproduced in this book cover aspects of Tom’s repertoire, and about half of them are contained on the accompanying CDs. Tom’s skill as a performer is captured along with his very obvious and contagious enjoyment in singing, which also comes across.

Dubliner Tom Munnelly (1944–2007) was passionate about song. His life’s work revolved around collecting, publishing and researching traditional song. In particular, he focused on songs in English whether of Irish origin or of the international ballad genre. In 1978, Tom moved, with his family, to settle near Miltown Malbay in Clare.

Tom Lenihan was not only one of Tom Munnelly’s most prolific sources but also a good friend. A publication such as The Mount Callan Garland reflects some of the fruits of this relationship. 

First published in 1994, Comhairle Bhéaloideas Éireann has now issued this reprint in an updated format. The sound recordings have been remastered by Harry Bradshaw.

 

The Jackie Daly Collection: Original Irish tunes in the traditional style for all melody instruments 

The Jackie Daly Collection, compiled, transcribed and edited by fiddle player Matt Cranitch, contains over 200 tunes composed by the famous Irish box player. 

Jackie Daly was born in Kanturk, Co. Cork, where he grew up surrounded by the rich music tradition of Sliabh Luachra in the south-west of Ireland. Jackie was a central figure in some of the most dominant groups playing Irish music since the 1970s.

With this collection of his original compositions, Jackie reveals another dimension to his creative achievements. Here are 226 new tunes across the various rhythmic genres of Irish music, including Jigs, Reels, Slides, Polkas, Hornpipes, Waltzes and Planxties. All are written in the traditional style, and are suitable for the various different melody instruments.

No Better Boy tells the story of a master of traditional Irish music: the legendary East Clare fiddler Paddy Canny, whose haunting music was remarkable for its virtuosity and sophistication.

In the 1950s, when he was in his thirties and at the pinnacle of his career, Paddy Canny became a national radio star, played solo in Carnegie Hall, toured England with the renowned Tulla Céilí Band, and made a much-loved recording. All were extraordinary achievements for a man raised on a marginal farm, where the gramophone records that inspired him were accessible only through the good grace of neighbours. In richly evocative prose, Helen O’Shea distils stories of success and adversity that Paddy Canny told to family and friends, to radio interviewers and historians. These stories illuminate rural life in mid-twentieth-century Ireland, major social and economic changes, and the decline and revival of traditional music and dancing.

A compelling story told with passion and insight, this is a book for readers with an interest in Ireland’s social history and for music lovers everywhere.

No Better Boy includes annotated transcriptions of music played by Paddy Canny and his contemporaries, sourced from archives and personal collections as well as commercial recordings.

Irish musicians in Chicago, 1920–2020

By Richie Piggot

Cry of a People Gone: Irish Musicians in Chicago, 1920–2020, documents the lives of Irish musicians, and significant milestones in the development of Irish music in his adopted city of Chicago.

The late Tom Munnelly was widely recognized as one of the world’s foremost collectors of traditional Irish songs in the English language.  In this volume, twenty-eight of his colleagues and friends, all of them outstanding in their own fields, have come together to produce a volume of essays in Tom’s honour.  This volume both pays homage to Tom’s personal achievement and shows the vibrancy and importance of ongoing work in the fields of traditional singing; folksong; folklore; ethnomusicology; song and folklore collecting; and traditional Irish music and dance.

Contents
Nicholas Carolan: Introduction
Ciaran Carson: ‘Fishing for Eels’, poem for Tom Munnelly
David Atkinson: From Text to Work: Reconceptualizing Folk Songs as Texts
Margaret Bennett: ‘History, Heartbreak and Hope’: Recording the Story Behind the Song
Seóirse Bodley: ‘Bean an Fhir Rua’ as Performed by a Master of Conamara Traditional Style, Seán MacDonncha of Carna Angela Bourke: Songs in English from the Conamara Gaeltacht
Caoilte Breatnach: Twenty Years Too Late: Collecting in the Kinvara Area
Nicholas Carolan: The Talking Machine Comes to Ireland
Jim Carroll and Pat Mackenzie: A Simple Countryman? Walter Pardon of Norfolk
Len Graham: Meeting Child on the Road
Patricia Lysaght: From the Kingdom to the Banner: Tadhg Ó Murchú as a Folklore Collector in Southwest County Clare in 1942
John Moulden: What Did We Sing Before there were Folksongs
Terry Moylan: Collecting Sets in the Early days of the Revival
Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin: A Drogheda List of Melodies: Implications for the Song Tradition of Oriel
Éamon Ó Bróithe: Gluaiseacht na gCarabhat I Sliabh gCua: An Stair agus an Béaloideas
Séamas Ó Catháin: Connoiseurs of Song Pádraig Ó Héalaí: ‘Nuair a Bhí an Slánaitheoir ag Siúl ar an Talamh’: Scéalta Minithe Cráifeacha sa Traidisiún Béil
Lillis Ó Laoire and Sean Williams: Singing the Famine: Joe Heaney, ‘Johnny Seoighe’ and the Poetics of Performance
Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin: ‘Traditional Ears’: Perception and Analysis in Irish Traditional Music
Stan Scott: Brown Ale and Black Tea (Traditional singing in North India and Ireland)
Hugh Shields: Textual Criticism and Ballad Studies Thérèse Smith: ‘Borders and Boundaries: Discord in Irish Traditional Song’ Seán Spellissy: Luibheanna Íce Árainn – The Healing Herbs of Aran Barry Taylor: A Problem for the Public – Seán Ó Riada and Irish Traditional Music
Ríonach uí Ógáin: Thar Farraige Anonn – Séamus Mac Aonghusa in Albain, 1946-1947
Fintan Vallely: Encomium on A Reluctant Academic
Bibliography and Notes on Contributors.

 

 

Tunes of the Munster Pipers, Volumes 1 & 2

This two-volume book publication from the Irish Traditional Music Archive presents the manuscript collection of Irish music written by Canon James Goodman in the 1860s and preserved in the Library of Trinity College.

James Goodman (1828-1896) from the Dingle area of West Kerry, a Canon of the Church of Ireland, Professor of Irish in Trinity College Dublin, and an accomplished performer on the Irish or uilleann pipes, compiled a highly important manuscript collection of Irish traditional music in the 1860s. Drawn to a great extent from the oral tradition of Munster, and partly from other manuscripts and printed sources, the collection has now been published for the first time.

Dr Hugh Shields (1929–2008), a native of Belfast, was Senior Lecturer in French in Trinity College Dublin and a Fellow of the college. He collected, studied and published traditional song and music from the 1950s. Lisa Shields, a player of concertina and uilleann pipes, is a graduate in modern languages from TCD. She is former Librarian of the Irish Meteorological Service.

The Folk Music Society of Ireland has published the latest issue of its journal Irish Folk Music Studies – Éigse Cheol Tíre vols 5-6, a double number containing articles, book reviews, record reviews, and a bibliography and discography compiled by the Irish Traditional Music Archive which cover the period 1985 to 2000 inclusive. The volume is edited by Hugh Shields, Nicholas Carolan and Thérèse Smith.

Volume 3 of the journal of the Folk Music Society of Ireland / Cumann Cheol Tíre Éireann, running from 1976–1981.

Volume 4 of the journal of the Folk Music Society of Ireland / Cumann Cheol Tíre Éireann, running from 1982–1985.

A Short Bibliography of Irish Folk Song / by Hugh Shields (1985)

Booklet from the Folk Music Society of Ireland giving a guide to source material then available.

Booklet from the Folk Music Society of Ireland giving a guide to source material then available

Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference of the Kimmission für Volksdichtung of the Société et de Folklore, Dublin and Co. Clare, Ireland, 26 August – 1 September 1995

The Local Accent: Selected Proceedings from BLAS, The Local Accent Conference / Thérèse Smith & Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, eds.

Blas / The Local Accent in Traditional Irish Music, of which this publication represents selected proceedings, was the first international conference of the 1990s held in Ireland which focused exclusively on traditional Irish music in its many manifestations, both at home and abroad. The conference, which took place at the University of Limerick in November 1995, was co-sponsored by Cumann Cheol Tire Éireann and the Irish World Music Centre of the University of Limerick, with additional assistance from Ionad na nAhmrán and the Traditional Music Society of the University of Limerick

The Irish Music Manuscripts of Edward Bunting (1773-1843): An Introduction and Catalogue / Dr Colette Moloney, ed.

A guide to some 1,000 traditional instrumental melodies (including many harp tunes) and 500 song texts (mainly in Irish) from 18th- and 19th-century Ulster and Connacht preserved in the music manuscripts of the musician and collector Edward Bunting. Includes an extensive introduction, a catalogue listing titles, music incipits, first lines of verse, names of persons and places, annotations etc., and numerous indexes, on 735 A4 pages. This catalogue is the first to give direction to Irish traditional music in manuscript and the first of its kind in Irish studies.

This is a work of reference which will be an indispensible research tool for musicians, especially harpers, for scholars of Irish music, language and oral literature, for cultural historians, and for all students of the Ireland of Bunting’s time. It unlocks a wealth of music and cultural information first preserved some 200 years ago but only now made known to readers worldwide.

Dr Colette Moloney from Charleville, Co Cork, is a musician in both classical and traditional idioms and a music scholar specialising in the Irish harp. A graduate in music of University College Cork, she gained her Ph.D. from the University of Limerick in 1995 on the subject of the Bunting music manuscripts. A former director of the Ennis school of music Maoin Cheoil an Chláir, she is currently a lecturer in music in the Waterford Institute of Technology.

A collection of the most celebrated Irish tunes : proper for the violin, German flute or hautboy / John & William Neal [eds.] ; facsimile edition by Nicholas Carolan

Music has been performed in oral tradition in Ireland now for some ten thousand years, but it was 1724 before the first notated collection of Irish music appeared. Consisting of forty-nine tunes and far older than any surviving manuscript collection, A Collection of the Most Celebrated Irish Tunes Proper for the Violin, German Flute or Hautboy was published that year in the yard of Christ Church Cathedral in central Dublin by the musical-instrument makers John and William Neal, a father and son of obscure origins who dominated the Dublin music trade in the first half of the eighteenth century.

Sold for the new and fashionable instruments of the violin, German flute and oboe, the collection proves on examination to consist almost entirely of traditional Irish harp music and the melodies of traditional Irish-language songs, many with titles in Irish.

A new facsimile reprint of the Celebrated Irish Tunes has now been published by the Irish Traditional Music Archive. It has been made from the single surviving copy of the original publication, and it makes generally available again a collection of Irish traditional music that was current three hundred and more years ago, music that differs greatly from the Irish traditional music of today.

This illustrated record of the life and songs of Eddie Butcher (1900–1980), an outstanding singer from Magilligan, Co Derry, brings back a vanished way of rural life and verbal entertainment. Hugh Shields (1929–2008) was teaching in Coleraine when he first met Eddie in Magilligan in 1953. Their musical friendship continued until Eddie’s death. During this period Hugh recorded and published a large repertory of songs from Eddie. The words and notated music of 67 unpublished songs, together with stories and recollections, are given in this book. It is accompanied by three CDs with Eddie’s singing of all the songs.