This final batch of tracks from the recording session of Séamus O’Mahony in 1952, predominantly feature popular tunes like The Rambling Pitchfork, as well as pieces or set dances associated with dancing, such as The Blackbird and The Three Sea Captains.

On the track featuring the well-known hornpipes The Kildare Fancy and The Harvest Home, O’Mahony’s intricate, dexterous left-hand is complimented by a fluid skilled bow-hand. His customary lavish tone and nostalgic vibrato is evident on his rendition of the song-air Teddy O’Neill.

For those with very perceptive ears, listen closely to Bonaparte’s Retreat as O’Mahony seems to provoke an excited reaction from a canine listener around the one minute mark!

However, the most unusual item in this recording session remains Sarsfield’s March performed energetically here by the father and son combination. This unique setting was learnt from a travelling musician from Wexford who visited the O’Mahony household in Mitchelstown in the early 20^thcentury and it could possibly be termed a descriptive piece.

ITMA was delighted to receive a copy of a manuscript belonging to Séamus O’Mahony in which a beautifully written transcription of this setting of Sarsfield’s March appears complete with piano accompaniment notated by traditional singer Máire Ní Scolaí (1909—1985).

For those of you seeking more information on this remarkable fiddle player and his extraordinary life, ITMA would recommend reading Brendan E. O’Mahony’s memoir and reflections on his parents’ relationship The Last Word published in 2013.

This is the fourth and final blog in the series about Séamus O’Mahony. Please follow the links below to read more about, and listen to, previous recordings.

Séamus O’Mahony: A Hidden Gem in ITMA / “Caill‑taisce’ sa Taisce Cheol Dúchais Éireann

Séamus O’Mahony: A Hidden Gem in ITMA. Part 2 / “Caill‑taisce’ sa Taisce Cheol Dúchais Éireann. Uimhir 2

Séamus O’Mahony: A Hidden Gem in ITMA. Part 3 / “Caill‑taisce’ sa Taisce Cheol Dúchais Éireann. Uimhir 3

Written & Researched by:

Liam O’Connor

With thanks to:

Brendan E. O’Mahony, Séamus O’Mahony’s son, for permission to make an outstanding recording from 1952 available to the traditional music community.

The O’Mahony Family for photographs used in this blog.

Kathy Mirza for her co-operation in 1998 in allowing ITMA copy the 1952 reel-to-reel recording of Séamus O’Mahony in the Fr. Killian Curran Collection.

Seán Keegan, DKIT, who kindly restored the recordings to concert pitch and to the speed at which it was originally played.

ITMA Staff.

The first track we’ll share in today’s blog is a 3-part version of the well-known jig Cherish the ladies.

Some written sources describe this as a “Munster Jig”. Indeed, versions of the tune feature in works by the Munster collectors P.W. Joyce, Chief O’Neill and Canon Goodman.

Having published a more elaborate 6-part version in O’Neill’s 1001: The Dance Music of Ireland (1907), Chief O’Neill attributed the original 2-part tune to the 18^thcentury Limerick composer Walker ‘Piper’ Jackson in Irish Minstrels and Musicians (1913).

Joyce notated a 2-part version from the playing of his neighbour Ned Goggin, the professional fiddle player in the village of Glenosheen, Co. Limerick during the mid-19^th century.

On the second track, O’Mahony plays two well-known reels: The Teetotaller and The Heathery Breeze. Again, these are widely published and widely recorded tunes. For example, both were published in O’Neill’s 1001: Dance Music of Ireland (1907).

For some listeners, O’Mahony’s rhythmic nuances in the second part of The Teetotaller may be reminiscent of rhythmic subtleties heard in Tommie Potts’s fiddle playing.

On the third track, O’Mahony
plays another well-known slow air An Chúilfhionn.  Described by Chief
O’Neill as “the Queen of Irish Airs” (1913), it is one of the most written
about airs in the Irish canon. Despite sharing the same title, many published
melodies vary significantly from one another. For example, Bunting published
“An Coolan or The Lady of Desert” in 1840 and it is significantly different to
the version P.W. Joyce published in 1909. Considered “ancient” by Bunting,
Grattan Flood (1906) even speculated that the original tune was composed in the
13^th century.

Regardless of its genesis, it is now one of the most
popular airs in the Irish tradition and O’Mahony’s version here is indicative
of what has become the most commonly-performed setting.

Tommie Potts can be
heard playing a very similar version to O’Mahony’s on Tommie Potts:
Traditional Fiddle Music from Dublin (RTÉ, 2012).

This is the third in a series of four blogs about Séamus O’Mahony. The fourth and final blog will be published in December 2019.

Séamus O’Mahony: A Hidden Gem in ITMA / “Caill‑taisce’ sa Taisce Cheol Dúchais Éireann

Séamus O’Mahony: A Hidden Gem in ITMA. Part 2 / “Caill‑taisce’ sa Taisce Cheol Dúchais Éireann. Uimhir 2

Written & Researched by:

Liam O’Connor

With thanks to:

Brendan E. O’Mahony, Séamus O’Mahony’s son, for permission to make an outstanding recording from 1952 available to the traditional music community.

The O’Mahony Family for photographs used in this blog.

Kathy Mirza for her co-operation in 1998 in allowing ITMA copy the 1952 reel-to-reel recording of Séamus O’Mahony in the Fr. Killian Curran Collection.

Seán Keegan, DKIT, who kindly restored the recording to concert pitch and to the speed at which it was originally played.

ITMA Staff.

On the first track, Séamus or Jimmy as he was known locally, can be heard playing the well-known set-dance The Ace and Deuce of Piping. P.W. Joyce published the melody in Ancient Irish Music (1873) in which he explained the title:

The words ‘Ace and Deuce’ (or one and two) mean here the highest pitch of excellence; and as the name indicates, the tune was considered the perfection of music when well played on the bag-pipes, and its correct performance was believed to be a sufficient test of the instrumental skill of a piper.

Joyce notated the melody in 1853 from the whistling of his neighbour John Dolan, Glenosheen, Co. Limerick; a village only 24 km from Mitchelstown, Co. Cork where O’Mahony was raised. The version O’Mahony plays on this recording, 101 years after Joyce notated Dolan’s version, is remarkably similar.

O’Mahony can be heard playing an expressive version of Táimse i m’Chodladh is ná Dúistear Mé, the well-known 18^thcentury ‘Aisling’ (a dream or vision) song, on the second track. His continuous vibrato and dramatic tone are distinguishing features of his approach to air playing.

On the third track, a spirited treatment is given to a march most commonly associated with the song Kelly the Boy from Killane written by P.J. McCall to commemorate John Kelly’s involvement in the United Irishmen’s Rebellion in 1798.

ITMA was delighted that Aoife Nic Cormaic presented tracks of Séamus O’Mahony on The Rolling Wave on the 6 October 2019. Listen to the RTÉ Radio 1 programme here.

We look forward to sharing more tracks with you in the coming months.

Written & Researched by:

Liam O’Connor

With thanks to:

Brendan E. O’Mahony, Séamus O’Mahony’s son, for permission to make an outstanding recording from 1952 available to the traditional music community.

The O’Mahony Family for photographs used in this blog.

Kathy Mirza for her co-operation in 1998 in allowing ITMA copy the 1952 reel-to-reel recording of Séamus O’Mahony in the Fr. Killian Curran Collection.

Seán Keegan, DKIT, who kindly restored the recording to concert pitch and to the speed at which it was originally played.

Even though Séamus O’Mahony lived to reach the grand old age of 91, his name is seldom mentioned in discussions on fiddle playing in Ireland. There are several reasons for this: O’Mahony did not make solo commercial recordings and he grew increasingly reluctant to perform in public or commit to broadcasts in the mid-twentieth century. However, the quality of his fiddle playing evident on the following tracks may prompt the question “How could a musician this good be forgotten?”

Born into a musical family, by the tender age of 13, Séamus and his older brother Edward had earned a sufficiently formidable reputation, as being outstanding young fiddler players, to warrant a biography and full-page photo in Chief O’Neill’s Irish Minstrels and Musicians (1913).

Older brother Edward or Eddie O’Mahony (1896–1962) substantiated his early promise by winning the senior Oireachtais fiddle competition in 1912 before joining the Capuchin Order in 1914 and moving away from playing traditional music. Younger brother Séamus followed in Eddie’s footsteps by winning the senior Oireachtais competition in 1917 thus adding to an already impressive array of medals.

In addition to 16 tracks of solo fiddle playing, ITMA has six recordings made by Séamus with uilleann piper Liam Walsh. Leo Rowsome was another musical partner that Séamus played with on several broadcasts and they recorded together as part of the All-Ireland Trio with Nelius Cronin.

Having developed a reputation as one of the Ireland’s leading traditional musicians, unfortunately for fans of Irish traditional music, Séamus became less inclined to play in public and did not commit to further commercial recordings.

My own personal interest in Séamus O’Mahony arose from reading the liner notes to Tommie Potts’s seminal album The Liffey Banks (1972). Potts, like Chief O’Neill, was not in the business of giving praise too easily. In a very considered note, Potts cited three fiddle players as being “the nearest on the point of influence on” him.

Having read Tommie’s note, I asked myself: “Who was Séamus Mahoney [sic.]? Are there recordings of him? How good was he and why is he not spoken about?”

As it happened, my father Mick O’Connor had been in contact with Séamus O’Mahony in the 1980s while conducting research into Leo Rowsome and in preparation for a history of the Dublin Piper’s Club. Subsequently, he began correspondence with Séamus’s son Brendan E. O’Mahony. Mick has prepared an unpublished biographical article on Séamus for future publication.

In October 1998, Kathy Mirza lent ITMA a reel-to-reel from Father Killian Curran’s Collection which contained a very fine recording featuring Séamus O’Mahony playing in his home in Youghal, Co. Cork, in July 1952 with some accompaniment on piano from his son Brendan. Upon being appointed Director of ITMA, I sought an introduction to Brendan from my father Mick O’Connor to see if there was a possibility of making the recordings accessible to the general public through ITMA’s website. Luckily Brendan agreed to ITMA’s proposal.

A special thanks must go to Brendan E. O’Mahony for being so generous with his own time, for donating other material such as photographs, letters, contracts, newspaper clippings and concert programmes to ITMA thus providing important insights into the extraordinary life of his father. During a recent field-work trip to Cork, Brendan told ITMA staff that his father Séamus brought the fiddle with him on active duty with the Irish Republican Army in North Cork during the War of Independence. Séamus’s wife, Máire also played the fiddle and took fiddle lessons from him in Mitchelstown in the 1920s. “The fiddle,” Séamus wrote to her at the time, “is part and parcel of us, part of who we are.” ITMA plans to continue to develop this project over the coming months and to conduct an interview with Brendan in 73 Merrion Square. Brendan, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the National University of Ireland, UCC, where he lectured for 35 years, wrote a lyrical, insightful and personal memoir of his parents in his 2013 publication The Last Words.

Upon hearing these recordings, as a fiddle player, I was absolutely blown away by the quality of Séamus’s playing, his command, emotion, skill, intensity, tone, subtle ornamentation, flair and polished execution. The more I listen to it, the more nuances I hear in his music. Hearing some similarities in style, tone, rhythmic character between O’Mahony and Tommie Potts becomes more evident too and gives a retrospective into the development of the latter’s style.

I hope these recordings inspire others to find their own hidden gem/”caill-taisce” from the collections awaiting them in the largest and most comprehensive collection of Irish traditional music in the world here at the ITMA.

In the coming months a total of sixteen tracks will be shared through ITMA’s newsletter and website in order to shine a light on one of Ireland’s forgotten musical figures of the early 20^thcentury.

Bainigí sult as an gceol draíochtúil seo.

Written & Researched by:

Liam O’Connor

With thanks to:

Brendan E. O’Mahony, Séamus O’Mahony’s son, for permission to make an outstanding recording from 1952 available to the traditional music community.

Kathy Mirza for her co-operation in 1998 in allowing ITMA copy the 1952 reel-to-reel recording of Séamus O’Mahony in the Fr. Killian Curran Collection.

Seán Keegan, DKIT, who kindly restored the recording to concert pitch and to the speed at which it was originally played.

ITMA Non-commercial Media Officer, Alan Woods, and Mick O’Connor who contributed significantly to the research on Séamus O’Mahony.

When ever the role of women involved in Irish traditional music is discussed, Mrs. Kathleen Harrington’s name frequently comes to the fore. Although there were numerally few women actively involved in playing traditional music, the few who were publicly active, were universally respected. The names of Aggie Whyte, Bridie Lafferty, Mrs. Crotty and Tilly Finn spring to mind. Undoubtably there were many others who only played at home but the musicians named above were the ones I was privileged to encounter.

Growing up in Sligo

Kathleen Harrington née Gardiner was born into a very prominent musical family at Corhober, Ballymote, Co. Sligo, on 14 July 1897. Her father, Séamus Gardiner, played the fiddle and flute and taught music in the locality, including training the local fife and drum band in the United Irish League Hall in Ballymote. Michael Anderson the piper from Lisananny, Ballymote, Co. Sligo, mentioned in Francis O’Neill’s Irish music and musicians (1913), was a first cousin.

It was only natural that the Gardiner children took to music. Mary Gardiner (Mrs. Sheridan who married and settled locally in Ballymote, Co. Sligo), Lucy Gardiner (Mrs. Rowland), and James Gardiner, all played fiddles. James emigrated to Scotland and played in a céilí band for many years. Her brother John Joe Gardiner played fiddle and flute was perhaps the best known of the family.

At that time, the Sligo style was predominant in music circles. Kathleen, and her brother John Joe, played with all the great musicians in the area. They were contemporaries of Michael Coleman, James Morrison and Paddy Killoran and had close connections with them over the years. This included receiving private acetate recordings containing music and greetings from James ‘Lad’ O’Beirne and Paddy Killoran.

Life in Liverpool

Kathleen and Lucy Gardiner went to work in Liverpool. While there, they stayed with the McNamara family, a music loving family originally from Co. Clare. Their son, Seán McNamara also played the fiddle and later played with the Liverpool Céilí Band. The Gardiner sisters became involved in the activities of the emigrant Irish community in Liverpool playing music at céilidhe and gatherings. It was at a céilí that Kathleen met her husband, Seán Harrington. Seán was at that time a volunteer in the Liverpool IRA. She herself became a member of Cumann na mBan during that period in England. When Kathleen and her husband returned to Dublin she resumed playing traditional music with her husband’s encouragement.

Katheen Harrington’s sister, Lucy married and settled in Galway where her sons, Oliver and Raymond, became renowned accordion players. They later spent years in London where they were an important part of the vibrant traditional music scene there in the 1950s and 1960’s.

Mrs. Harrington was a good fiddle player and unusually at the time for women, had recorded a solo fiddle 78 rpm disc recording for HMV in 1938, and a recording for the short lived Irish Recording Company (IRC).

The Gardiner Traditional Trio

Kathleen Harrington recorded with her brother John Joe Gardiner who was an extraordinary musician, equally proficient on fiddle and flute. They recorded as the Gardiner Traditional Trio in 1938 with John Joe on flute, Kathleen on fiddle and Moya Acheson from Dundalk on piano. John Joe was a contemporary of Michael Coleman and his brother, James. John Joe Gardiner taught fiddle players Paddy Killoran and James Morrison before they emigrated to the USA and they kept in touch over the years.

Mrs. Harrington and the Kincora Céilí Band

Apart from her 78 rpm disc recordings, as a solo musician, and with the Gardiner Trio, Kathleen was also known throughout the country as the leader of the Kincora Céilí Band.

p>The Kincora Céilí Band was formed after the foundation of the Ballinakill Céilí Band, the first céilí band to broadcast and record. Recordings issued by record companies of these two fine groups are a testimony to their brilliance. Their combination of flutes and fiddle in the Kincora Céilí Band produced a sweet and melodious sound reminiscent of the Ballinakill Céilí Band and undoubtedly these two bands must rank amongst the greatest groupings of Irish traditional musicians.

Mrs. Harrington founded the Kincora Céilí Band in the late 1930s. The Kincora Céilí Band was in typical Sligo style with fiddle and flute to the fore: Kathleen Harrington (Sligo), Pat O’Brien (Sligo), Mick Loughman (Kildare) on fiddles, John Egan (Sligo), John Brennan (Sligo) on flutes and Kathleen O’Connor (Dundalk) on piano. Their first public appearance was at a céilí organised by the Scottish branch of the Old IRA in 1937 in the Round Room of the Rotunda, Dublin. The Kincora Céilí Band was subsequently very popular with dancers and music lovers alike.

At a later period in 1940s, after an illness, she handed over the leadership of the band to piper, Seán Seery, but continued playing the fiddle with them. With this changed band they went on to win the All-Ireland Senior Céilí Band Competition title at Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann held at Longford in 1958.

The Pipers’ Club and the development of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann (CCÉ)

Mrs. Harrington was also a major figure in traditional musical circles and as a member of the Pipers’ Club committee, was centrally involved in the in the development of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann (CCÉ) in the early years, and in the trade union associated with CCÉ, The Irish Traditional Musicians Association for many years. For most of this period, apart from Mrs. Crotty in Co. Clare who was also involved in CCÉ, Mrs. Harrington was one of the very few female musicians actively involved at a national level.

Because of her national profile as a band leader and her family connections, she was a highly respected individual and much sort after as a musician and an adjudicator at the early fleadhanna.

She was a very active committee member of the Pipers’ Club from when it was located in 14 Thomas Street, Dublin and continued to serve as a committee member when they relocated to Monkstown in 1976.

The Siamsa Céilí Band

Mrs. Harrington’s days of playing with céilí bands was not finished yet. Her brother, John Joe was living in Dundalk and was the figurehead and inspiration for a new generation of musicians. Rory Kennedy with Patsy and Pauline Gardiner formed the Siamsa Céilí Band and were subsequently three times champions of the All-Ireland Céılí band competition (1966–69).

Mrs. Harrington was a prominent and experienced member of the band. The Siamsa Céilí Band included John Joe’s daughters, Pauline and Patsy and his son-in-law, Brian O’Kane. Mrs. Harrington was certainly an asset to the band as she had the experience of competing and winning with the Kincora in the All-Ireland Céılí band competition in 1958.

Members of the band as shown below:

Standing, back row: Brian O’Kane (piano accordion), Kevin O’Callaghan (drummer), Brendan Gaughran (piano) and Rory Kennedy (accordion).

Front row: Patsy Gardiner (fiddle), John Joe Gardiner (fiddle), Kathleen Harrington (fiddle), and Joe McKevitt (flute).

Personality wise, she was a lovely dignified lady, always dressed smartly, invariably with a large stylish hat. Over the years she forged a unique role as a recording artiste, band leader, winning several Senior Céilí Band All-Ireland titles with the Kincora and Siamsa céilí bands, a committee member of the Pipers’ Club and an adjudicator at musical events all over the country.

On a personal level, I would like to acknowledge her generosity and encouragement to me and other young musicians in the 1960s. In her own quiet way, she was a role model for female musicians and in that regard, was universally respected by the musical community.

Kathleen Harrington and other surviving members of the Kincora Céilí Band participated in a get together organised by the author to commemorate the Kincora Céilí Band shortly before her death on 4th November, 1984.

Unpublished recording of Kathleen Harrington

ITMA and Mick O’Connor would like to extend thanks to Harry Bradshaw who has shared an unpublished recording of Kathleen Harrington to mark #IWD2022.

Recorded circa 1949–50, Kathleen is accompanied by piano, double bass and banjo mandolin.

Acknowledgments

Mick O’Connor would like to thank the extended Harrington and Gardiner families, and in particular to Brian and Patsy O’Kane née Gardiner, for their continuous support and encouragement over the years.

Special thanks to Harry Bradshaw for his generosity in supplying an unpublished recording of Mrs. Harrington playing Bonnie Kate and the Boys of the Lough.

Images used are courtesy of Mick O’Connor, ITMA Photographic Collection, and Independent Newspapers.

Blog editor: Grace Toland

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Irish Peasant Songs (in the English Language) with the Words Set to the Proper Old Irish Airs, ed. Patrick Weston Joyce (2nd ed., London etc. & Dublin, 1906; ‘new impression’ Dublin 1922)

Irish Peasant Songs is a slight publication which includes the words and music of 7 traditional songs in English remembered by Joyce from his childhood in rural Co Limerick during the years before the Great Famine, and some notes. In one case the song comprises a traditional air with words written by Joyce.

Nicholas Carolan, Treasa Harkin & Jackie Small, 14 November 2012

Cnuasacht Port agus Cor do’n bPíano / A Collection of Jigs and Reels Arranged for Piano 1 & 2: Piano Arrangements by Carl G. Hardebeck

The two-line interactive music scores presented here are from published arrangements of traditional dance tunes made for piano sometime before or in 1921 by the English-born classical musician and dedicated arranger of Irish music Carl G. Hardebeck (1869−1945). They were published first in Dublin in two slim volumes by the obscure Crow St firm of Sullivan & Co, presumably in the early 1920s, and were republished and kept in print by the large Dublin specialist music publishers Pigott & Co of Grafton St.

The 53 dance tunes of the volumes comprise, in Hardebeck’s classification, jigs and reels in a ratio of about 2:3, a hornpipe and a ‘fancy dance’. Some of his reels would however nowadays be regarded as hornpipes or set dances. His main sources were fiddlers − Sean O’Gorman of Co Galway, Treasa Halpin of Limerick, a Mr O’Curran of Co Waterford, and a John Duffy among them – and he tells us that his elaborate arrangements seek to imitate fiddle style, and are meant also to be played with a delicate early harpsichord tone. They are listening pieces, not intended for dancing. An indirect source, through O’Curran, was the Co Waterford fiddle player and Irish music theorist Fr Richard Henebry. O’Gorman had been taught by a Co Clare fiddle master and dance teacher, Lynch, and Hardebeck recommends the slow pace of his performances.

It seems clear that Hardebeck, in contrast to 19th-century arrangers of Irish music, adheres conscientiously to the tune versions and performance practice of his source musicians. He takes scrupulous care with the reproduction of traditional rhythms, for example, by making extensive use of crotchet-and-quaver triplets to represent the elusive traditional reel rhythm, and also faithfully reports a sharpened fourth interval where it occurs, in situations where a standard fourth would be preferred in standard usage today. He thus regularly specifies the Fah mode (which has now virtually disappeared from the tradition) for tunes that incorporate this phenomenon, which is amply attested in early sound recordings.

Nicholas Carolan, Treasa Harkin & Jackie Small, 12 March 2015

Cnuasacht Port agus Cor do’n bPíano / A Collection of Jigs and Reels Arranged for Piano 1 & 2: Piano Arrangements by Carl G. Hardebeck

The two-line interactive music scores presented here are from published arrangements of traditional dance tunes made for piano sometime before or in 1921 by the English-born classical musician and dedicated arranger of Irish music Carl G. Hardebeck (1869−1945). They were published first in Dublin in two slim volumes by the obscure Crow St firm of Sullivan & Co, presumably in the early 1920s, and were republished and kept in print by the large Dublin specialist music publishers Pigott & Co of Grafton St.

The 53 dance tunes of the volumes comprise, in Hardebeck’s classification, jigs and reels in a ratio of about 2:3, a hornpipe and a ‘fancy dance’. Some of his reels would however nowadays be regarded as hornpipes or set dances. His main sources were fiddlers − Sean O’Gorman of Co Galway, Treasa Halpin of Limerick, a Mr O’Curran of Co Waterford, and a John Duffy among them – and he tells us that his elaborate arrangements seek to imitate fiddle style, and are meant also to be played with a delicate early harpsichord tone. They are listening pieces, not intended for dancing. An indirect source, through O’Curran, was the Co Waterford fiddle player and Irish music theorist Fr Richard Henebry. O’Gorman had been taught by a Co Clare fiddle master and dance teacher, Lynch, and Hardebeck recommends the slow pace of his performances.

It seems clear that Hardebeck, in contrast to 19th-century arrangers of Irish music, adheres conscientiously to the tune versions and performance practice of his source musicians. He takes scrupulous care with the reproduction of traditional rhythms, for example, by making extensive use of crotchet-and-quaver triplets to represent the elusive traditional reel rhythm. He also faithfully reports a sharpened fourth interval where it occurs, in situations where a standard fourth would be preferred in standard usage today; he thus regularly specifies the Fah mode (which has now virtually disappeared from the tradition) for tunes that incorporate this phenomenon, which is amply attested in early sound recordings.

Nicholas Carolan, Treasa Harkin & Jackie Small, 12 May 2015

Ceol na nGaedheal: Carl Hardebeck’s Arrangements for Tin Whistles

The two-line interactive music scores presented here are from arrangements made for tin whistles by the English-born classical musician and dedicated arranger of Irish music Carl G. Hardebeck (1869−1945; Hardebec in Irish). They were published in 1937 as Ceol na nGaedheal (music of the Irish), a small inexpensive collection suitable for school use, by the Dublin educational publishers Browne & Nolan Ltd (Brún agus Ó Nualláin Teor. in Irish). The scores were added to the site on 10 February 2015, the 70th anniversary of Hardebeck’s death on 10 February 1945.

The booklet contains twenty-five popular national airs and dance tunes, and a basic tutorial introduction which views the tin whistle as an easy and cheap means of initiation to playing music for all children. With a view to giving easy access to the reading of music, its melodies are set in the tonic sol-fa notation which had been widely used in Irish primary schools since the 19th century.

The arrangements were produced in Hardebeck’s last years, when he was living in poverty in Dublin, and they may have been commissioned from him as a practical support. Nevertheless they are interesting and original, and he evidently undertook the work seriously. The first line of tonic sol-fa generally carries the melody and the second provides harmony, but occasionally the melody alternates between the two lines.

Given that Hardebeck was blind and unable to proofread, and that the typesetters probably did not read music, there are very few errors in the book’s musical content. It is very likely that items from this book fed into the live tradition, and probable echoes of it can be heard in the repertories of prominent Irish 20th-century musicians.

Nicholas Carolan, Jackie Small and Treasa Harkin, 10 February 2015

Amhráin Mhuighe Seóla is a classic collection of traditional songs in the Irish language, one of the relatively few to contain notated melodies as well as words.

These songs were collected in Co Galway and Co Mayo by Mrs Eileen Costello (Eibhlín Bean Mhic Choisdealbha) of Tuam in the early 20th century, and were published by the Irish Folk Song Society in London in 1919 as a number of its journal, and again in Dublin in 1923 by The Talbot Press, commercial publishers. On a variety of themes, they are mainly love songs. Maigh Seola is an ancient territory between Loughrea and Headford in Co Galway.

Mrs Costello was born Edith Drury in 1870 in St Pancras workhouse in London, where her Limerick father worked as an attendant. Her mother was Welsh. She became a teacher, and was in the 1890s prominent in a number of the then many Irish cultural organisations in London. A highly active member of the Gaelic League from its London foundation in 1896, she learned Irish there. Her song collecting in the Irish language began in London (she first collected ‘Neillí Bhán’ on a train coming from Woolwich), but her collecting work really began in Ireland, in Tuam, where she came to live having in 1903 married a Dr Thomas Bodkin from the town. He was a medical doctor, historian, and fellow Gaelic Leaguer. Among her chief singers from 1904 was a Maggie Hession of Belclare, members of whose family are still involved in traditional music. Mrs Costello was active in the War of Independence and became a senator in the Irish Free State. She died in 1962. Although she supplied extensive source-notes to the songs and information on their backgrounds (with English translations mainly by others), her motivation was not academic. She intended her volume primarily ‘for popular use in the schools and Gaelic League classes of Connacht’.

Amhráin Mhuighe Seóla, which had become a rare antiquarian volume, has been republished several times in paperback facsimile since 1990 by Cló Iar-Chonnachta. A more extensive biography of its compiler as ‘Costello, Eileen’ will be found at www.ainm.ie.

The 84 melodies of the collection are now available here for playback and reading, and in PDF format for convenient printing.

Nicholas Carolan, Treasa Harkin & Jackie Small, 29 July 2013

The earliest visual images of Irish music published by Francis O’Neill in Chicago, in 1903 and from 1907, were frontispiece photographs featuring contributors to his music collections: Irish musicians permanently or temporarily living in Chicago and musicians living in Ireland whom he met on a visit home to Ireland in 1906. In his first study of Irish music, Irish Folk Music:A Fascinating Hobby (Chicago 1910), the same mixture of photographs is seen along with some Irish line drawings and other illustrations from older sources (see below).

In his second study of Irish music, Irish Minstrels and Musicians (Chicago 1913), the textual treatment of the music and musicians is now greatly expanded in range and detail, and likewise the number of visual illustrations reproduced has been increased. They again come from the same kind of sources as the earlier books, and in addition some images are reproduced from Continental and British sources, a reflection of O’Neill’s placing of Irish music in a European context. New images used in Irish Minstrels and Musicians (excluding music notations) are reproduced here from the collections of the Irish Traditional Music Archive, along with a few visual illustrations from his Waifs and Strays of Gaelic Melody (Chicago 1922; 2nd ed. 1924).

Nicholas Carolan & Treasa Harkin, 1 February 2011

Competitive dancing in Ireland is probably as old as dancing itself in the country, but the first substantial evidence for it comes from the 19th century. Dancing masters frequently danced against each other for the control of teaching territories, and men and women for community prestige. With the establishment of the Gaelic League in 1893 and its competitive cultural festivals which included solo and group dances, dancing competitions became much more organised. Professional dancing schools were set up and dancing costume began to evolve.

The Irish Examiner (formerly The Cork Examiner), was founded as a nationalist newspaper in Cork in 1841. It was one of the earliest Irish newspapers to use photographs. Many of its oldest photographic plates were destroyed in a serious fire in the newspaper’s premises in 1927, but the many surviving glass negatives in its archive document a wide range of Irish social life in Munster in the first half of the 20th century. They include coverage of Irish competitive dancers.

The selection of Irish dancing images presented here were researched by ITMA staff in the premises of The Irish Examiner in 1992. They are reproduced with the kind permission of The Irish Examiner in whose copyright they belong.

For picture sales contact The Irish Examiner +353 (0)21 4802393 or 4802208

Nicholas Carolan, 1 February 2009

In the 1870s, cigarette companies in the United States began to promote their product by inserting numbered collectible series of illustrated cards in cigarette packets. The cards typically carried a picture on the front and information about the picture on the back. Ironically from what we now know about the effects of tobacco, they often featured sportsmen, wildlife, and open-air beauty spots. A craze for collecting these cards began, which continues in a different form to this day (a single cigarette card has achieved over two million US dollars at auction).

Some fifty years later, in the 1920s and possibly from 1924, William Ruddell Ltd, a Dublin tobacco, cigar and snuff manufacturer with Liverpool connections which had been in business since the mid-19th century, issued two series of cigarette cards. They both had cultural associations which were meant to attract smokers and, again ironically, both were connected with singing. One was a series on grand opera and the other was entitled ‘Songs that will Live for Ever’. There were fifty cards in this latter series. At least some of the songs were Irish, and 15 of these Irish cards are presented here, each with a competent painting by an unknown artist which illustrates the song and is accompanied by a verse of the song on the reverse.

The Irish songs are mostly popular national songs by known mainly 19th-century songwriters – Andrew Cherry, Samuel Lover, Thomas Moore, Edmund Falconer, Lady Dufferin, E. Mordaunt Spencer, Alfred Percival Graves and Percy French. Their somewhat genteel character may have been part of the Ruddell company’s marketing strategy. Although all these songs had an early life on commercially issued song sheets, they have since entered and become part of the Irish oral tradition and belong to that large blurred area where Irish popular and Irish traditional song overlap.

Like the songs and the fame of the songwriters, but unlike singers who smoke, William Ruddell Ltd also may have a long life: it remains in existence as a subsidiary of the oldest Irish tobacco company, P.J. Carroll & Co, which is itself a subsidiary of British American Tobacco PLC. There is some evidence that the numbers missing here from the series may have been English rather than Irish songs: no 14 was ‘The Bay of Biscay’ and no 31 ‘Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep’. Further information on the missing numbers would be welcome.

Nicholas Carolan & Treasa Harkin, 1 August 2015

This audio playlist has been curated by Irish Traditional Music Archive staff to provide a soundscape to the Decade of Centenaries. The selection reflects material of contemporary political, cultural and popular interest and is drawn from recordings held in the ITMA collections. The songs, music and speech come from wax cylinder and 78 rpm disc recordings, ranging in date from 1905−c.1940, which have been digitised by ITMA, and in the case of the wax cylinders by Henri Chamoux. They were originally recorded in Ireland, London and New York by early recording pioneers, the majority issued by commercial recording companies.

The recordings provide a backdrop to a changing Ireland: the Gaelic League and the Irish-language revival, the First World War, the 1916 Rising, and Irish and international popular music of the day, including the first wave of popular Irish-American vaudeville instrumentalists.

We drew inspiration from printed resources (see Erin remember 1916 below) as well as the Irish Military Archives’ Bureau of Military History Collection, 1913−1921. The witness statements are a rich source of information on songs, fundraising concerts, marching bands and individual musicians and singers of the period. Recordings made in Germany in 1917 of Irish prisoners of war are also an extremely valuable contemporary resource. They have been digitised by the Sound Archive of Humboldt University Berlin.

You will find more information about each recording in the playlist by selecting the arrow key to the right of each title. This will bring you to the individual page for this audio piece. Here you will find composer names, recording labels, etc. which we have been able to source. Where possible we have linked to printed versions of the sound recordings which you can also view online.

This playlist is a sampler of the many sound recordings held in ITMA which reference events during the Decade of Centenaries. ITMA will continue to catalogue and highlight historical recordings while also documenting responses to the events of 1916 in 1966 and 2016.

Grace Toland, Danny Diamond, Brian Doyle & Alan Woods, 1 March 2016

Early forms of sound recording were ‘acoustic’, that is, the sounds produced by singers and musicians were directed into a horn and cut mechanically by a vibrating needle into a groove on a cylinder or disc. The resulting playback sound was constricted and relatively unnatural. But in the mid-1920s the introduction of electric microphones and ‘electrical’ sound recording brought a great increase in fidelity of sound. It also enabled a much greater sound dynamic to be captured, and this had a particular advantage in recording large ensembles like dance bands.

Larger Irish-American bands, of the kind that had been playing in dance halls in the eastern cities since the late 19th century, took advantage of the new medium, and the recordings they made began appearing from 1926. They featured the full band ensembles, as in their performances in the halls, and also the band vocalists and instrumental soloists. The selection presented here from the collections of the Irish Traditional Music Archive represents ensembles from New York, Boston and Chicago, which comprised mainly Irish-born musicians playing traditional music. Combinations of instrumental sounds never before heard in Irish music were heard on these recordings, which give us our first insights into large Irish ensemble playing.

By way of contemporary contrast and contextualisation, the selection concludes with an ‘Irish’ song by the famous Irish-American Bing Crosby and a rendering of one of the most famous Irish melodies by what was possibly the most famous of the American big bands.

With thanks to record donors Jim Brophy, John Cullinane, Ciarán Dalton, Vincent Duffe, John Loesberg, Mrs Walter Maguire, Dan Maher, Matt Murtagh, & Kieran Owens.

Nicholas Carolan & Danny Diamond, 1 December 2011

A successful dance-hall, gramophone and radio band in Boston from the mid-1920s, Dan Sullivan’s Shamrock Band specialised in the playing of Irish traditional music and popular songs. Known as Sullivan’s Shamrock Band on its earliest discs, it recorded extensively in New York and Boston for the Columbia, Victor and Decca companies, from 1926 to 1934.

Dan Sullivan was a classically trained piano player, the American-born son of a Cork-Kerry professional fiddle and flute player of the same name, and he worked for the Steinway Piano Corporation in Boston before himself becoming a full-time professional. The earliest lineups of his recording band featured a core of Kerry musicians: Michael C. Hanafin on fiddle, Daniel J. Murphy on uilleann pipes, and Daniel P. Moroney on whistle. Later lineups included Sligo, Galway and Irish-American musicians, and introduced flute, accordion and banjo.

All the Sullivan Band recordings held by the Irish Traditional Music Archive are presented here. While their music was recorded for dancing rather than for listening to, the band was one of the first Irish groups to benefit from the fidelity of electrical sound recording, which was introduced by the large American commercial companies from 1925, and its instruments can be distinctly heard in the best recordings. Some of the ITMA discs are quite worn and noisy or faint, but are presented here at the end of the sequence for the sake of interest.

With thanks to donors of discs Ciarán Dalton, Jim Carroll & Pat Mackenzie, Vincent Duffe, Gearóid Gallagher, Gearóid Jackson, John Loesberg, Dan Maher, Kevin O’Reilly, Kieran Owens, Gay McKeon, John Butler, John Brennan, John & James Kelly, Caoimhín Mac Aoidh, & Tom Munnelly. ITMA would welcome donations, or loans for copying, of any Sullivan Shamrock Band recordings not presented here, or of better copies of worn discs. The photograph is reproduced courtesy of the Tamiment Library / Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University. It is a Victor Talking Machine Co publicity photograph dating from 1928, and it is part of the Library’s Archives of Irish America: Mick Moloney Irish American Music and Popular Culture Papers collection. Dan Sullivan is seated centre right; the fiddle player at top left is Michael C. Hanafin, at top right is Mike Mullin; the flute player is Murty Rabbett, the drummer Jim O’Brien, the banjo player Neil Nolan, and the accordion player Connie Hanafin (with thanks to Daniel Neely for identifications via Facebook).

Nicholas Carolan & Brian Doyle, 1 June 2014

The banjo has been a popular instrument in American culture, particularly in jazz and minstrel music, since the early 20th century. It is now generally accepted that the banjo originated in Africa and was introduced to the United States as a consequence of the slave trade. In its original form, it would have been constructed from timber gourds and hide skin with hemp or gut strings. In the United States the instrument underwent numerous modifications, such as the addition of frets, tension hoops, synthetic skins and steel strings. Gradually the banjo was integrated into mainstream popular American music.

However the popularity it was to gain in Irish traditional music most probably began with the invention of the four-string or tenor banjo in the opening years of the 20th century. This differed in a number of ways from earlier models, but most significantly the tenor banjo had four strings instead of five, had a shorter neck and was played with a plectrum. It was tuned at a higher pitch than its modern equivalent, but in fifths, similar to the mandolin, and thus complemented the fiddle. It also had the advantage of being loud, making it suitable to play in the noisy, poorly amplified venues of the time. Another factor in its popularity was the ready availability of high quality instruments, at affordable prices, by makers such as William Lange of Paramount fame, with a factory on 225−227 East Twenty Fourth Street, New York.

This selection of early 20th-century recordings reflect the sounds of the pioneers of this ‘new’ instrument in the tradition. Without there being teachers to imitate, a range of styles and approaches developed:  James Ryan, from Paddy Killoran’s Pride of Erin Orchestra, tended to use the banjo largely as a backing instrument; Michael Gaffney adopted a plain melodic style, while the virtuoso playing of Mike Flanagan was a mixture of melody and chords held together by a wonderful underlying sense of rhythm.

The earliest-known commercial recording of Irish traditional music played on the banjo dates back to 18 December 1916, when James Wheeler recorded with accordion player Edward Herborn for the Columbia label.

We hope you enjoy this eclectic mix of early banjo-playing styles from ITMA’s collection of 78 rpm discs.

Brian Doyle, 1 February 2016

The barndance is in origin both a musical form and an accompanying social ballroom dance which became popular in England and north America in the late 19th century. Its ancestors were the European polka and schottische social dances and their distinctive music of the mid-century. Like them, the barn dance changed over time and space and exists in a number of varieties. Its early music was composed by professionals or consisted of existing melodies adapted by them to the new fashion. Usually in 2/4 or 4/4 time and strongly marked in rhythm, with an emphatic ending to each section, the barndance seems originally to have been danced by couples in lines who would advance in sequence and dance complete waltz turns. In the 20th century the term would be applied to quadrille-derived square dances, or to dances danced in barns – in this latter sense it seems to have been used also in the 18th century as a term for country dances.

Although basic research on the topic remains to be done, barndances are likely to have come into Ireland at the time of their first popularity through commercial sheet music and the activities of professional dance teachers. In time they were danced and played traditionally, mixed in during a night’s dancing with older forms. As a dance form, the barndance is now almost obsolete in the Irish tradition, as are the related schottisches, flings, etc., and the distinction between these forms is now being lost. But their musical forms live on in the instrumental tradition because of the attractiveness of their melodies. While barndance melodies begin to appear in collections of Irish traditional music in the late 1920s, they had earlier and more influentially begun to be issued from the early 1920s on 78rpm commercial discs recorded by Irish emigrant musicians in New York and other American centres of Irish settlement.

These discs – from which a selection is presented below from the collections of the Irish Traditional Music Archive, along with some later recorded in Ireland – contain both ballroom melodies imported into Ireland and popular Irish song and dance melodies pressed into service for the new dance, and possibly some tunes from contemporary American-printed collections. This mixture undoubtedly reflects musical practice in the home areas of the musicians earlier in the 20th century, and in contemporary Irish-American dancehalls. The discs influenced local repertory in Ireland as they began to be heard widely there from the 1920s; in more recent times Irish traditional composers with an awareness of these discs began a new practice of barndance composition.

With thanks to record donors John Brennan Family, Jim Brophy, Éamon de Buitléar, Jim Carroll & Pat Mackenzie, Ciarán Dalton, Vincent Duffe, Christy Hand, Dan Healy, John Kelly Family, Máire Killoran, John Loesberg, Caoimhín Mac Aoidh, Dermot McLaughlin, Mrs Walter Maguire, Dan Maher, Tom Munnelly, Éamonn Ó Domhnaill, Ed Reavy Jnr, & Áine Sotscheck.

Nicholas Carolan & Danny Diamond, 1 June 2010

Leo Rowsome (1903–1970) was a third generation uilleann piper.  His musical and pipe making skills were inherited from his grandfather Samuel Rowsome from Ballintore. Co. Wexford and his father William who established the family pipe making and repair business in Dublin. One of six musical children, Leo was to play a pivotal role in the revival of uilleann piping in Ireland as a pipe maker, performer, teacher, organiser, advocate & publisher.  He performed extensively in Ireland and abroad, and broadcast on both radio and televsion.  His recording career began in the era of the 78 rpm disc and it is from this period that we present 12 tracks in this audio playlist.  Leo recorded with a number of 78 rpm record companies and on vinyl with Claddagh and Topic Records. The labels represented in this selection from 1926–1944 are Columbia, Decca and HMV.  The tracks span the range of Irish traditional music dance rhythms as well as airs, and are predominantly solo recordings.

The Rowsome piping tradition continues through fifth and sixth generations of the family in both playing, pipe making and publishing.

The curation of this audio playlist was inspired by the donation of a set of posters and photographs featuring Leo by his daughter Helena.  The posters and photographs are featured in an image gallery below as well as some performance related documents.

We would like to thank Helena Rowsome for the images and also the donors of the 78 rpm discs which make up this tribute to the King of the Pipers Leo Rowsome.

An explosion occurred in the publishing of cheap printed teach-yourself tutors for all kinds of musical instruments in the late 19th century in Western Europe and the United States of America, a kind of publishing that had its roots in the 18th century and even earlier and continues to the present.

Typically these printed tutors first presented the rudiments of staff notation (and sometimes tablature), followed by instrument-specific information, graded scales and exercises, advice, tips, etc., and music. Some incorporated a systematic programme of teaching, some were really tune-books prefaced with some starter-level information.

Tutors of this kind were known in Ireland from at least the early 18th century, but they were normally directed at instruments of classical and popular music, and at most contained a few hackneyed Irish traditional tunes. Tutors directed at players of Irish traditional music have been produced mainly in the 20th century, often outside Ireland, and as well as printed publications have included audio, video and online tutorials.

Even earlier however were such tutorial aids as the treatise on the uilleann pipes included in O’Farrell’s Collection of National Irish Music for the Union Pipes (London, 1804) and the opening sections of the book presented here and marked for the Irish fiddle, Batt Scanlon’s The Violin Made Easy and Attractive… Gaelic Collection of Irish Airs, Jigs, Reels, Hornpipes, Marches, etc. (San Francisco, 1923, ITMA copy imperfect).

Batt (Bartholomew?) Scanlon was a Co Kerry music teacher who operated the Scanlon School of Music in downtown San Francisco in the 1920s. He had been a fiddle pupil in Ireland of a noted blind travelling fiddle teacher George Whelan, who had flourished around the 1880s, and he passes on some of his tunes in this volume. Although Carl G. Hardebeck, the blind London-born pianist and organist who specialised in the arrangement of Irish music, states in his preface to Scanlon’s book that Whelan was born in Co Clare and taught in North Kerry, Clare sources state that he taught in Clare but was from Kerry.

Hardly by accident, Scanlon’s book was published in the opening years of the new Irish Free State. It seemed to have been influenced by a Gaelic League spirit and by the publications of his fellow-Munsterman Capt Francis O’Neill of Chicago. Scanlon dedicates the volume to another Irish activist, the famous San Francisco-based priest Rev. Peter C. Yorke.

With thanks to book donor Dr Jimmy O’Brien Moran of Waterford. Do you have a perfect copy of this tutor, or do you have similar Irish music, song or dance tutors? The Archive would welcome their donation or the opportunity to copy them. Readers in California, and in San Francisco in particular, may be able to find further information on Batt Scanlon in local sources; we would also welcome any such information.

Nicholas Carolan, Grace Toland & Maeve Gebruers, 1 April 2010

Most published Irish political songs, whatever their shade of opinion, are to be found on ballad sheets, chapbooks and songsters, mainly dating from the 18th to the 20th centuries. Aimed at the general non-music-reading public, they carry only the words of the songs, not their music.

The music of political songs, however, is to be found, in sheet-music form, again dating from these centuries but aimed at the musically literate. These songs also represent different political opinions, from the loyalist Volunteer movement of the late 18th century to the separatist nationalist movements of the early 20th.

With a new rise of nationalist feeling from the beginning of the 20th century, and especially after the 1916 rebellion and the 1922 foundation of the Irish Free State, a number of small sheet-music firms in Dublin specialised in the publication of Irish national songs. These were arranged for voice and piano, and were often literary in tone; their subject matter varied from the past glories of Irish history to contemporary political issues.

The selection of 20th-century Dublin-published sheet music of national songs presented here from the collections of the Irish Traditional Music Archive was published by the Art Depot, the Gaelic Press, the Kearney Brothers, Quinn & Co, and Whelan & Son. It is arranged as far as possible in chronological order by subject.

With thanks for the donation of sheet music to Paul Deegan, Bríd Hetherington, Seamus Kearns, Mrs Caroline Mullan, the Library of the National University of Ireland Galway, Nellie Walsh, & Waltons Ltd of Dublin. ITMA would always welcome the donation of other materials of this kind which are not yet in its collections (check our catalogues here), or of their loan for copying.

Nicholas Carolan & Maeve Gebruers, 1 December 2010

Carl Gilbert Hardebeck (1869−1945) was a classical pianist, organist and composer, a music teacher and choirmaster, and also a dedicated collector, arranger and publisher of Irish traditional music. Traditional song was his main area of Irish interest, and he edited and arranged for voice and piano several influential collections of Irish-language songs. But he was also responsible for three published collections of instrumental traditional music, and these are reproduced here from the collections of the Irish Traditional Music Archive to mark the 70th anniversary year of his death.

Born in London of prosperous German and Welsh parentage, the precocious Hardebeck was blind from childhood. He received his music education at the Royal Normal School for the Blind, and in 1893 moved to Belfast to establish a music store. When this failed, he devoted the rest of his life to music, living in Belfast until 1919, moving to Cork to take up academic positions before returning to Belfast in 1923, and ultimately moving to Dublin about 1933. His final years were spent in poverty but he remained a keen advocate of Irish music until his death.

Married to an Irishwoman and poet Mary Reavy, Hardebeck became involved with the Gaelic League and Feis Ceoil movements in the 1890s. He learned Irish and devoted his life to Irish traditional music after coming into contact with traditional singers and musicians: ‘I decided to leave all and follow it’. His arrangements respected the nature of the music and are still highly regarded. Hardebeck’s music was published by himself in Belfast and by various London publishers; his other publications and re-publications came from Dublin publishers: Conradh na Gaeilge, Pohlman, Whelan & Son, Sullivan & Co, Pigott & Co, The Sign of the Three Candles, Browne and Nolan Ltd, and Oifig an tSoláthair. The two O’Sullivan-published volumes presented here were republished by Pigott & Co.

With thanks to the Breathnach Family for the donation of the volumes.

Nicholas Carolan & Maeve Gebruers, 1 February 2015

A little-known collection of 84 Irish-language songs entitled Songs from Ballyvourney, Co Cork, with Irish Texts and Translations, and presented here in facsimile from the collections of the Irish Traditional Music Archive, was described in the mid-20th century as ‘incomparably the finest collection published in our time of Irish songs noted from oral tradition’.

Remarkably, the collection was made by a retiring English scholar of private means, Alexander Martin Freeman, in West Cork in 1913 and 1914, and was published by the Folk-Song Society of London in three numbers of its journal from 1920 to 1921.

The songs were collected by Freeman with care and sympathy from a number of local singers, chief among them being Conchubhar Ó Cochláin (Conny Coughlan) from Doire na Sagart, ‘said to be over 80… but… as active and alert as a man of 40’. Freeman’s approach was ethnographic and scientific, and he provides many valuable insights into the nature and role of singing in the local community. Although his work was written in English, with translations of the song texts into English, music in staff notation and extensive background notes, his choice of a phonetic spelling for his Irish-language song texts has been a barrier to their use and has contributed to their obscurity.

But some items from the Freeman collection have been brought into contemporary circulation, by for example the musician and composer Seán Ó Riada and the singer Iarla Ó Lionáird, currently of the group The Gloaming. Freeman’s field notebooks from Ballyvourney are held in the National Folklore Collection, University College Dublin.

For ease of reference, Freeman’s Irish titles and first lines have been rendered into modern standard Irish by ITMA, and can be found here in the catalogue data under each of the periodical facsimiles.

With thanks for advice and assistance to Malcolm Taylor, former Librarian of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, London, and to Cathal Goan.

Nicholas Carolan & Maeve Gebruers, 1 April 2015

[A consideration of Freeman and his Cork collection by Nicholas Carolan ‘”Out of the Smoke”: A. Martin Freeman’s West Cork Song Collection of 1913–14’ (21 pp.) appeared in November 2015 in a festschrift of essays by various authors for Professor Dáibhí Ó Cróinín of University College Galway, himself editor of a much later collection from West Cork: The Songs of Elizabeth Cronin, Irish Traditional Singer. The festschrift is entitled Early Medieval Ireland and Europe: Chronology, Contacts, Scholarship (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 723 pp.) and is available for purchase in hardcopy or as pdf downloads of individual essays from the publishers here.]

One of the most substantial of the theoretical works on Irish music, and one that is difficult to understand, is A Handbook of Irish Music by the Rev. Dr Richard Henebry (Risteárd de Hindeberg, 1863–1916). Henebry was a traditional musician from an Irish-speaking and musical farming family in Co Waterford, a Roman Catholic priest who had served in Britain and the United States, an academic with a doctorate in Celtic studies awarded in Germany, and an early field recorder in Ireland of Irish music on cylinder.

A person of strong opinions on many subjects, and something of an eccentric, Henebry also had firm views on the nature of Irish traditional music. These were first aired in his 1903 pamphlet Irish Music, but were revealed at their fullest in the Handbook, which was edited by his colleagues in University College Cork in the years after his death and published in 1928 by Cork University Press, aided by the subscriptions of friends and admirers and with a preface by Tadhg Ó Donnchadha, his successor as Professor of Irish Language and Literature in Cork. The book is based on a surviving Henebry manuscript which lacks some pages but which is otherwise published in its entirety, with the addition of four missing melodies from family members and some footnotes and indexes. A facsimile of the Handbook is presented below.

The original manuscript of the Handbook was divided by the editors into five sections: 1 Introductory; 2 Of the Writing of Irish Music; 3 Of the Coarser Analysis of Irish Music; 4 Structural Analysis; 5 Of the Finer Analysis of Irish Music, or Tonometric Examination. Henebry had been influenced by the thinking of early German and American ethnomusicologists as well as by his own observations, and understood music as arising from the emotions rather than the reason, and sharing its characteristics with animal utterance. He gives primacy to vocal music over instrumental music, and pays most attention to the pitches and intervals, scales and modes which he considers ‘natural’ to Irish music. In this connection he expends much time on note frequency counting that he had carried out on tunes from the published collections of George Petrie and Patrick Weston Joyce.

The most valuable features of the book are the versions of tunes he gives from his own experience and the incidental information he gives on singers and musicians, including his own mother. The fifth section of the book deals with the melodies he himself had recorded on phonograph in Co Waterford in 1905 (see related material below) and which had been subjected to tonometric analysis in the Berlin Phonogramm-Archive in 1907. The melodies were transcribed for the Handbook from notations said by the editors to be Henebry’s (but which may actually have been those of the Berlin analysts) by the singers and music editors Séamus de Clanndiolúin and Maighréad Ní Annagáin.

For further information on Henebry and his music, see the links following the Henebry playlist below.

With thanks to the Breathnach family, donors of the book.

Nicholas Carolan & Maeve Gebruers, 1 June 2015

Sound recording was introduced to Ireland in the late 19th century when cylinder recording machines were used for the professional and amateur recording of Irish traditional music. But sound technology was not to play a significant role in documenting Ireland’s musical memory until three to four decades later. To learn more about what songs were known or sung during the Decade of Centenaries in Ireland (1912–1922), we have turned to the printed collections of the Irish Traditional Music Archive.

The collection of 37 items below builds on an earlier digital collection of printed material Nationalist Songs on Sheet Music, early 1900s. Other items have now been added to reflect the range of political, cultural and social change at play during this eventful period in Irish history: the Home Rule Movement, the Gaelic League, the Dublin Lock Out, World War I, the 1916 Rising and what lay beyond.

The Home Rule Song Book featured in the collection looked to the writings of earlier nationalist poets and song writers as sources of inspiration for its political aspirations, a feature also evident in the cultural activities of the Gaelic League, formed in 1893. An intense revival of interest in Irish language, song, music and dance opened opportunities for members to learn and perform. Songs arranged with piano accompaniment and to suit the taste of the musically literate found an audience among such Gaelic Leaguers. These included the works of Thomas Davis (1814–1845) such as ‘A Nation Once Again’ and ‘The West’s Asleep’, the latter captured here from a recording of singer Donncadh O’Finn at the 1907 Oireachtas in Dublin.

Other more immediate concerns faced the thousands of Dubliners whose harsh living and working conditions were brought to light and challenged during the Dublin Lockout (1913–1914). From this period we have included works of the Irish Citizen Army members James Connolly and Countess Markievicz.

Across Europe international politics were to draw an estimated 200,000 Irishmen to fight in World War I. While ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’ and ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’, presented below, captured the popular imagination, the recent discovery, by Irish Times journalists Derek Scally and Ronan McGreevy, of sound recordings of Irish prisoners of war recorded in Germany in 1917, and now held in the Lautarchiv Humboldt University Berlin, evoke this period as nothing else can.

We end this printed collection with a wide variety of Dublin-published nationalist sheet music, reflecting the events of Easter Week 1916, the subsequent execution of the leaders, and the 1922 foundation of the Irish Free State.

The ITMA collections in 73 Merrion Square contain more song collections relating to this period. We look forward to sharing information on new discoveries during 2016.

With thanks for the donation of sheet music, books & ballad sheets to Paul Deegan, Bríd Hetherington, Seamus Kearns, Mrs Caroline Mullan, the Library of the National University of Ireland Galway, Máirtín Ó Flathartaigh, Nora & Colm Ó Laoghaire, Nellie Walsh, & Waltons Ltd of Dublin.

Grace Toland & Maeve Gebruers, 1 February 2016

Lorcán Ua Muireadhaigh [Laurence P. Murray] (1883−1941) was a renowned Irish language scholar, historian and collector, especially in the field of the Irish language traditions of Ulster.

Among the published works of William Forde (1797–1850) the Cork musician, editor and collector, is a selection of 100 Irish airs published in 1841 as part of his 300 National Melodies of the British Isles.

Born in Carlingford, Co. Louth, he was educated in St Malachy’s, Carlingford and St Patrick’s College, Armagh before entering Maynooth as a clerical student in 1901. The influence of the Gaelic Revival and of the exiled Professor of Irish Fr. O’Growney on college life at this time is evident, in the founding of Cuallacht Cholmcille and the Columban Record, now Irisleabhar Maighe Nuadhat. Nearer home at the opening meeting in 1903 of the County Louth Archaeological Society, he met Henry Morris, another substantial influence on his life. Laurence wrote extensively as a student and published in the aforementioned society journals. While academically applauded, he came under disciplinary scrutiny during a period of student discontent in 1907, and was asked to leave Maynooth the following year. He was ordained a priest in St Paul, Minnesota in 1910.

Following the foundation of the Omeath Summer School in 1912, Laurence returned to Ireland annually as part of the staff, and to collect songs, stories and prayers from native speakers. Over a period of seven years, he phonetically transcribed approximately 250 songs from forty people living across seven townlands. From this manuscript collection came his first book Irish Ceolta Óméith: an chéad chuid published in 1920, containing the words of thirty-four songs with notes on the local singers and versions sung.

Another twenty-three songs were published in Amhráin Chúige Uladh: cuid a haon in 1927 with tonic solfa transcriptions of the airs. The second volume was published in 1937 but unfortunately the Irish Traditional Music Archive does not have an original copy of this book in its collection. We would be delighted to receive a copy of the publication as a donation or on loan in order to digitise it and make it available online.

By this time Laurence had returned to parish life in Ireland having refused to sign an oath of allegiance in the United States following the outbreak of World War I. While conducting his duties as curate in Clonfeacle, Co. Tyrone and parish priest in Dunleer, Co.Louth, Fr. Murray continued as a language teacher, researcher, prolific writer and activist, establishing the monthly periodical An tUltach in 1924, and the renowned St Bridget’s College, Ranafast in Co. Donegal in 1925/26.

He died in the parochial house in Dunleer on 25 June 1941.

For more online information on Lorcán Ua Muireadhaigh, please see ainm.ie

References to his work can also be found in the notes to the Doegen Records Web Project: Irish Dialect Sound Recordings 1928−31 published online by the Royal Irish Academy

With thanks to Ciarán Dalton

The greatest number of Irish songs ever published, over 1,000 in all, was collected, researched, edited and set to music by An tAthair Pádruig Breathnach / Fr Patrick A. Walsh (1848–1930), a Vincentian Catholic priest and an active cultural nationalist who is almost now a forgotten figure. . Published at politically significant times from 1904 to 1926, Breathnach’s songbooks influenced nationalist cultural thinking during the period, providing material for the de-anglicisation programme of the Gaelic League, disseminating patriotic songs in English during the War of Independence, and making bilingual song provision for schools as part of the nation-building of the new state.

Some 470 of these songs are in Irish and 530 in English. Drawn from oral, manuscript and printed sources, they were published in a sequence of cheap popular songsters and songbooks mainly by the Dublin firm of Browne & Nolan. Every song text was set to a melody in tonic solfa. Sales of these publications ran into the tens of thousands, and they would have a lasting influence on the oral tradition of both languages.

Pádruig Breathnach was born during the Famine in a largely Irish-speaking district near Carrick-on-Suir, Co Waterford. Having been educated locally and in the Catholic seminary of Maynooth, Co. Kildare, he was ordained a priest about 1873; most of his ministry was carried out in the cities of Cork and Dublin. He was interested in music and song from his youth, and, as an early enthusiast for the preservation and revival of the Irish language, he joined several Irish-language organisations before becoming a member of the new Gaelic League in 1893. As a young priest in Cork, he collected songs in Irish from his parishioners and on holidays in west Cork. More than 150 Irish-language songs in his collections, words and music, were collected in Cork and Waterford by himself or by his close associate Áine Ní Raghallaigh (1868–1942) of Macroom, a Gaelic League singing teacher.

In the early 1900s, when he himself was in his fifties, Breathnach was persuaded to begin publishing songs in Irish in penny songsters for schoolchildren. The success of his efforts led him to continue with similar songsters aimed at members of the growing Irish-language revival. The songsters were eventually collected into book form in 1913, and he went on to produce a series of further Irish-language songbooks for over a decade. Many of their songs were new, insofar as Breathnach selected verses by various authors and set them to music collected by himself or chosen by him from the published collections of Irish melody. Breathnach was also aware of the national value of the English-language songs of Ireland and by 1915 he had begun the publication of these songs, again in penny songster form and eventually in a hardback series of songbooks. His publishers advertised these as containing over 1,300 pages of song.