Larry Redican (1908-1975) was a central figure in the traditional music scene of New York City from the 1930s to 1970s. Originally from Dublin, his parents were from Roscommon and steeped in music. Larry himself learnt fiddle from the famous Frank O’Higgins before emigrating to the US in 1929. Over the following decades Larry helped form the New York Ceili band with many musical friends Andy McGann, Jack Coen, Felix Dolan and Paddy O’Brien when Paddy lived in New York City. Luckily Larry made recordings of musical sessions with his friends in New York in the 1950s and 60s as well as sending and receiving private recordings with personal greetings and music from the Pipers Club in Dublin. He also was a close friend of Ciarán Mac Mathána, who privately made some of the recordings below for him, and a vital link to facilitating Ciarán’s recordings in the US for Radió Éireann in the early 1960s.

Larry’s grandson, Larry Jr, has kindly donated his grandfather’s tape collection to ITMA and this playlist represents a selection of those recordings capturing both the vibrant music scene in New York at the time and also recordings made in Ireland and sent on to Larry. Hope you enjoy the music.

Pádraic Mac Mathúna, July 2023

This month’s playlist offers an unique opportunity to hear rare recordings made by the late Tom Davis. Tom was a familiar figure at Irish music events for over 50 years since the 1960s, recording music, song and conversation at fleadhs, concerts and private houses. His recording equipment was high quality and over these years he amassed thousands of tapes featuring both well known figures and lesser known musicians and singers. Tom’s widow Eleanor has generously donated Tom’s large collection to ITMA, where work has commenced on exploring and cataloging what is an invaluable resource for the Irish music community. This playlist just offers a glimpse of the breath and quality that Tom’s life’s work has made to Irish music.  – Pádraic

Originally from Pennyburn just outside Derry, Tomás spent time in England where he was a founder member of the Liverpool Céilí Band. In 1961 he moved to Cork where he became Dean of Engineering in University College Cork (UCC). He studied music in UCC under Aloys Fleischmann and Seán Ó Riada and succeeded Ó Riada as lecturer in Irish music after his death in 1971. He also taught uilleann pipes at the Cork School of Music for many years.

In the late 1960s Ó Canainn formed the successful Irish music group Na Filí along with fiddler Matt Cranitch and whistle player Tom Barry. Réamonn Ó Sé, the original whistle player with Na Filí, recorded on their first album An Ghaoth Aniar/The West Wind in 1969. In the 1970s the group toured extensively in Europe and the US and recorded a number of other albums: Farewell to Connacht (1971); Na Filí 3 (1972); A Kindly Welcome (1974) and Chanter’s Tune (1977).

Tomás was also an accomplished solo performer and toured internationally, lecturing and playing the uilleann pipes. He published a number of solo albums: With Pipe and Song (Outlet, 1980), Béal na Trá (with his daughter Nuala Ní Chanainn, Outlet, 1982); New Tunes for Old (Ó Canainn, 1985); and The Pennyburn Piper presents Uilleann Pipes (Outlet, 1998).

Ó Canainn was the author of a number of books on traditional music most notably: Traditional Music in Ireland (Mercier, 1978); biographies in English and Irish on Ó Riada Seán Ó Riada: His Life and Work (Collins Press, 2003), Seán Ó Riada: Saol agus Saothar (with Gearóid Mac an Bhua, Gartan, 1993) and Songs of Cork (Gilbert Dalton, 1978) where he acted as editor for the collection.

He published an autobiographical novel Home to Derry (Appletree Press, 1986), memoirs entitled A Lifetime of Notes (Collins Press, 1996) as well as a book of his own compositions Tomás’ Tunebook (Ossian, 1997) and a book of slow airs Traditional Slow Airs of Ireland (with 2 CDs, Ossian, 1995).

Ó Canainn has a number of choral compositions and arrangements to his name including three masses in Irish; Aifreann Cholmcille (Veritas, 1978), Aifreann Naomh Fionnbarra, and Aifreann Biosántac. He also published two books of poetry Melos (Clog, 1987) and Dornán Dánta (Coiscéim, 2004).

At the 2004 Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, Ó Canainn was awarded Ard-Ollamh, or Supreme Bard by Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann.

Maeve examined the print and manuscript items in the collection and gleaned as much information as possible from Helen and Nuala about these materials. This detailed information from the family will greatly assist Maeve in cataloguing the collection in the coming months and years.

In total 15 boxes of manuscripts, printed items, ephemera (posters, flyers, programmes etc.), photographs, film reels, research papers, lecture scripts, scrapbooks, commercial/non-commercial sound and video recordings (LPs, audio cassettes, reel-to-reel tapes etc.) were transferred from the Ó Canainn house in Cork to the Irish Traditional Music Archive.

These materials will be processed in the coming months with priority given to the digitisation of the most at-risk audio/visual carriers. ITMA is working towards organising and making the Tomás Ó Canainn Collection accessible to the public in the coming years.

Uilleann piping was a relatively niche pastime in Ireland of the 1970s and, by and large, men more than women, played the instrument. However, as children learning the pipes back then from Mícheál Ó Riabhaigh in the Cork Pipers’ Club, we had no awareness of these statistics. It seemed to us all, both boys and girls, to be the easiest thing in the world to acquire a practice set and get started. Mícheál made sure that anyone who showed an interest was given every opportunity and encouragement to play. Of the eleven musicians in the above photograph, seven were pipers, four of them females: Mary Mitchell, Rosaleen O’Leary, Mary McCarthy and me. The male pipers were Mícheál himself, his son Eoin and my brother Conal, who played for a few years and would have been a fine piper had he not eventually opted for the flute.

The group of young musicians, seen above with Mícheál in 1975, were on a celebratory day out in Killarney when fiddle player and photographer, Domhnall Ó Máirtín, got us to pose with our instruments. We had just won the Ceol na nUasal category of the All Ireland Slógadh finals for the third year in a row and Mícheál was very proud of our achievement. A lot of time and effort had gone into practising for each round of the competition. Our main piece that year was The Fox Chase, with all the sounds of the hunt, barking dogs, galloping horses, horns, bugles and the crying and lament of the poor fox. To mark our victory, the club commissioned a silver medallion from the well-known Cork silversmith, Fred Archer, and presented one to each member of the group.

Looking at this photograph, taken so many years ago in glorious sunshine and with the flowering glory of the Muckross Park rhododendrons in full bloom, I realised with a start that Mícheál Ó Riabhaigh died just one year later in 1976, beannacht Dé lena anam uasal. His unexpected death was a sad blow to all of us who had grown up learning music from him at our Saturday night session. The Cork Pipers’ Club struggled to continue its activities without Mícheál’s guiding passion and commitment, though it did get back on its feet some years later.

Despite its title, the Cork Pipers’ Club was home to traditional musicians of all shades. The weekly Saturday night session in Dún Laoi on Cork’s North Mall was always a hive of musical activity, with pipes, mandolins, whistles, button accordions, piano accordions, bodhráns and fiddles in the mix. This weekly gathering was the centre of our musical lives and all generations met up and played, sang and danced together there.

Certain families had a strong presence and the mammies and daddies were as active as their children in club activities; Ó Riabhaighs, Ó Grádas, Mitchells, McCarthys, Ó Cathasaighs, O’Learys, Guinevans, Ryans and Twomeys. This was probably a factor in why the club was so good at organising excursions, outings and parties, like the one to Killarney mentioned above. One of our most enjoyable club trips was to Captain Francis O’Neill’s birthplace in Tralibawn each summer. We held a concert on a lorry in the middle of a field and it seemed to go on forever because everyone and anyone who wanted the gig got it! Afterwards we would repair to nearby Bantry town, where we would have a meal and a night of music.

I would like to thank Deirdre Ó Máirtín for kindly permitting the use of her father’s photograph for this blog. The above image is taken from Domhnall’s fascinating photographic record of Cork’s musical life in the 60s, 70s and 80s and which the Ó Máirtín family has generously bequeathed to the Irish Traditional Music Archive. It captures a proud moment for Mícheál Ó Riabhaigh, Chairman of the Cork Pipers’ Club, and for all of us lucky enough to have known him and to have benefitted from his great generosity.

The Domhnall Ó Máirtín Collection at ITMA contains 335 black and white, and colour photographs of Irish traditional musicians taken in Cork 1960s–1980s by the late Domhnall Ó Máirtín. The Collection has been generously donated to ITMA by the Ó Máirtín family.

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Robert Samuel (Robin) Morton

24 December 1939 – 1 October 2021

Listen here to a playlist of music associated with Robin

Robin Morton was among my oldest friends; almost sixty years; that is my first thought, before I think of him as an important figure in twentieth-century Irish song research, or as a significant promoter of the ‘pure drop’ before the term was coined. Yet, it’s possible that, outside of Ulster, he is little known in Ireland.

He certainly was better known in Scotland, where, as a founder member of The Boys of the Lough, the producer of award winning albums by Dick Gaughan, Artie Tresize and Cilla Fisher, founder and principal sound engineer of Temple Records, “The Scottish Record Label”, manager of The Battlefield Band, pioneering producer of records of Scottish harp playing, unaccompanied Gaelic singing, kitchen pipers, fiddle groups and more, Director of the Edinburgh Folk Festival, Chairman of the Scottish Record Industry Association and all round defender of musicians’ right to a decent living and fair treatment, he had a very high profile. Accordingly, in 2008 his achievements were recognised by his being inducted into the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame as the seventh recipient of the Hamish Henderson Award for Services to Scottish Traditional Music.

He is remembered differently in Ireland, especially the ten years he spent in Belfast, from 1962. There Robin was a friend, singer and musician, club organiser, song collector who issued his work in books, on albums and in broadcasts, and who promoted traditional music and song, and mentored its practitioners. He was also a ‘media personality’. I’m inclined to think that it was during those years he discovered and developed the qualities that were to serve him later.

He was born in Portadown, (Co Armagh) where his father, John, was an electrician – and a jazz lover. Thus, after a go at the cornet while at school at Portadown College, Robin gravitated towards Leadbelly and then, like almost everybody of his age, Woody Guthrie. That’s what he was singing in 1962 when we first met.

However, his mother, Mary’s, influence soon told. Her brother, Tom McCreery, hearing of Robin’s interest in singing took him to a pub, ‘The Head o’ the Road’ at Tartaraghan, almost the centre of the Orange universe and only a few miles from the place of its founding. On Fridays, there was singing, all men and all protestants and mostly Orangemen; Orange songs dominated; The mysterious seven, The Maghery riots (Maghery’s the adjoining Catholic Parish), The first creation, The battle of the Boyne, The crimson banner, Derryad flute band, The Orange maid of Sligo, Annie Moore, Cromie’s Orange buck, Shall we from the Union sever, The siege of Derry, Lisnagade. Other songs were sung too, Scottish ones – like The lad in the Scotch Brigade, The harbour of Dundee and The road and the miles to Dundee; Irish songs – Portadown’s a pretty place, The factory girl, The bonny bunch of roses, Sweet Loughgall, Johnny Harte, The wild rover, Rafferty’s pig, Dafferty’s duck, Ellen O’Connor, My bonny Irish boy, The Irish carman, Dobbin’s flowery vale; recitations like “I’m livin’ in Drumlister and English songs too – all the elements of the song corpus of the north of Ireland but with an unusual bias – unionist-centred but, nevertheless, Irish in form and performance style. Some of these songs had seldom been collected from traditional singers, and some never at all – Sam Henry had actively avoided sectarian songs and the BBC’s recording scheme of the 1950s had steered clear too – further, these men would have been suspicious of collectors called Seán (O’Boyle) or Séamus (Ennis), but Robin was with his uncle who was known and accepted, and Robin was too. He went and he listened and he took part – singing Woody Guthrie songs – and he went back, again and again, and eventually he recorded. He also recorded Frank Mills from Benburb in hospital – Robin had, as he said,, “got a kicking” playing rugby for Portadown against Dungannon and got stuck there for a week. That week he recorded ‘Old Arboe’ from an old man who was too shy to be recorded but was caught as he sang behind a screen sitting on a bed pan.

That would have been 1962/3 when Robin was studying for a diploma in Social Work at Queen’s University Belfast. The next year he spent in London – another diploma – in Psychiatric Social Work at the London School of Economics. He met Ewan MacColl and went to Cecil Sharp House to get copies of the songs (like the ones he’d heard among friends, at The Head o’ the Road) that had been collected in Ulster by the BBC, and was disappointed that they could only be transcribed; Ewan to the rescue, he had copies and was happy to allow them to be recopied. Robin came back to Belfast, started work with the families of children who needed psychiatric help and brought those songs with him but, influenced by MacColl, sang Cosher Bailey and Join the British Army. In 1964 he started a club on the lines of the London Singers’ Club, The Ulster Folk Music Society, very well remembered by a generation.

Belfast was full of fine musicians, many of them migrants from the country, some of the Queen’s students, like Henry O’Prey and Seán Quinn played with them in the McPeake’s Ceili Band and so Robin and the rest of us were introduced to fiddler, Tommy Gunn, piper Seán MacAloon, the ivory flute player, James McMahon, mandolin player Jimmy Grimes and John Rea, hammer dulcimer (that unkind people called ‘the bicycle wheel’, unable to musically reconcile the ringing of its undamped strings). There were many more and they were persuaded to play at the club and they became friends. They introduced Cathal McConnell and our network, and Robin’s began to expand.

The Head o’ the Road led to introductions too – like Sam Higginbottom and Arthur Whiteside, a rabid Orangeman (Vivian Molloy who was a neighbour as a child, will testify), who sang some of the most contentious songs in the Orange repertory – The Protestant Maid who introduced arsenic into the Communion bread and, having informed the celebrant priest, challenged him to consume it and prove Transubstantiation – or about The ladder into Purgatory that led from every popish altar and whose descent was each priest’s last act – but he also sang The darling baby, that Robin took over and loved – about a husband’s inability to quieten a child when its mother was away and which subsided as soon as she returned – ‘the wretch’! These were prizes but the best was to come.

I mentioned the legendary ivory flute – its owner, James McMahon (there’s a Facebook page devoted to memories of him) had an older brother, also living in Belfast, Paddy. Paddy was a singer – The shamrock boys from Kill, Edward Boyle, On board the Victory, Mary Neill – not many songs but among the best. Paddy told of a great singer from near where the McMahons were from, Roslea in Fermanagh – John Maguire and introduced him and Robin. He was a great singer, not a shade of doubt. He was a spellbinder – but that was not all, the fields around his farm at Tonaydrumallard held a whole exultation of singers – more of the family, Biddy, Brian, another sister (probably Ellie) – Robbie Doonan – and Nellie and Peter Mullarkey – outstanding singers and outstanding songs – the wonderful love song, Erin the green, now a staple, is owed to Nellie.

There were other recordings made but these two centres, Tartaraghan and Tonaydrumallard provide the bulk. Robin used them to compile Folksongs Sung in Ulster – and showed another side of his character. He mentioned the idea of putting the songs in a book to a more experienced collector and was advised against it – people will just spoil them, he was warned. This may have been a typical attitude, Robin told of showing the first results of his collecting to the Director of the Ulster Folk Museum. He suggested that he could be lent a decent tape recorder – “… but, Mr Morton, what qualifications do you have for this work?” Robin had none that were acceptable, so he went and bought his own machine – a Uher 4400 Report Stereo – the best at the time. And he published the songs because he thought that people needed to know about them.

Folksongs Sung in Ulster issued in 1970, fifty-two songs (including one from his Aunt Sally, Tom McCreery’s wife) of which twenty appeared on two LPs that came out the following year. It was a unique combination and unique for another reason. Most song collections up to then had concentrated on the texts and tunes, most of the discussion was about other versions of the song. Robin’s focus was on the place the songs occupied in the lives of the singers, and the ways they reflected the lives of the people and the history of Ireland – he did include references but they were relegated to an appendix – and I compiled it.

[We are delighted to learn from Alison Kinnaird that Folksongs Sung in Ulster will be re-published in December 2022 accompanied by a CD featuring 22 tracks of the original singers from Robin’s field recordings].

Perhaps this was because Robin had found a new academic direction. He’d given up his work in social psychiatry to begin a degree in Social and Economic History. Without a regular income he put his tape recorder to work as a freelance broadcaster conducting interviews for BBC Northern Ireland Radio, as Robin Morton. A bit later, Cathal McConnell was puzzled to hear someone called Robert Martin, sounding very like the Robin he knew, interviewing for Radio Éireann. Sometimes Robin sold the same interview, differently edited under three different names to those two outlets and the BBC World Service.

At the same time, he had recognised that John Maguire was a genius, not just as a singer, he certainly was that – there was a concert at Belfast’s Whitla Hall, where John held an audience breathless for the entire first half – he seemed to bring his life onto the stage as if in his kitchen – his part is remembered and the headline act has been forgotten – and, again when, singing a song over to himself before a television appearance, he stilled a studio full of hard-boiled sound and lighting technicians, cameramen and floor managers who applauded when he’d finished. But another aspect of John’s genius was conversation. Robin decided he was worth a book. Come Day, Go Day, God Send Sunday: The songs and life story, told in his own words, of John Maguire, traditional singer and farmer from Co. Fermanagh, was published to acclaim in 1973. It was among the folklore books of the year, narrowly failing to win the Chicago Folklore Prize. It was reissued in 2017, by Routledge at a massive £76.00 in hardback but, much more reasonably, £23.11 paperback. An accompanying LP was published by Bill Leader, Leader Records rather later, 1975, I think. It contained 12 songs and is another gem. I had half a dozen that I’d bought for £1.00 each about twenty-five years ago and gave them away to friends last year. It’s time for a CD reissue.

However, that was almost the end of Robin’s work as a collector though he did pursue an interest in issuing a similar book about the fiddler Tommy Gunn and interviewed him extensively but eventually decided it would not have held the same interest. In any case, by that time his life had changed utterly.

It was his own fault. He had such a range of abilities, he could have been a broadcaster, even a Television Personality – for a while he was a continuity announcer for BBC Northern Ireland – or an academic historian or ethnographer, indeed, when he finished his degree in Social History he started a PhD in Edinburgh, comparing the history of the concept and treatment of ‘madness’ in Ireland and Scotland, but the music won out.

In 1967, he’d formed a group with Cathal McConnell (flute, whistle and songs), Tommy Gunn (fiddle, lilting, dancing and songs), and himself (concertina, bodhrán and songs). They’d ‘done’ festivals across Britain under their three names until a promoter in Aberdeen demanded something easier and they became The Boys of the Lough, after the reel. Tommy, then in his sixties, eventually found it too much but not before Robin and Cathal, who’d made an album, An Irish Jubilee, together, in 1971, had met, and enjoyed instant friendship with Aly Bain, a brilliant young Shetland fiddler, and singer-guitarist Mike Whellans who were playing as a duo. The Boys of the Lough was reborn and with Robin and Cathal, Aly and Mike, and when Mike was replaced by Dick Gaughan and then he by Dave Richardson, enjoyed unparalleled success – the first professional folk band – before Planxty, Altan or Dervish – until Robin left in 1979.

That meant another new beginning. He had met and married Alison Kinnaird, an exceptional artist in two fields – harp playing and in engraving on glass – in 1974, and in order to live and work in one place on their very various pursuits, had bought and were converting a disused church at Temple in Midlothian, in the hills to the south of Edinburgh.

Touring with the ‘Boys’ didn’t occupy all Robin’s time and, having produced the LPs for his books and An Irish Jubilee, he recorded Alison’s Harp but none of the existing ‘folk’ labels, Topic, Leader, Transatlantic would take a risk on the, up to then, unheard, sound of a solo Scottish harp. Temple Records was born – The Harp Key: Crann Nan Teud was published in 1978, their first issue. Robin had met the Battlefield Band in 1972 and had produced their first album, in 1980 he became their manager, which he remained until his death. Temple Records enjoyed over a hundred releases, many of them pioneering efforts, scoffed at by others because, like harp music, they were unfamiliar or uncommercial – unaccompanied Gaelic singing, ceol beag (dance music on highland pipes) and piping recitals, groups of fiddlers, early Scottish music. The unifying feature was quality; on which Robin refused to compromise. He loved music but it had to be good music.

In parallel with Temple releases he produced albums for other labels, in many cases launching careers. Some of the Scottish ones were mentioned at the outset but his contribution to Irish music was also of substance. He produced Cathal McConnell, Len Graham, Kevin Mitchell and Geordie Hanna & Sarah Ann O’Neill’s debut albums. Records of fine musicians followed John Rea (Dulcimer), Seán MacAloon (pipes), flute players, Packie Duignan, Séamus Tansey and Josie MacDermott and fiddlers, Séamus Horan and Vincent Griffin, all for Topic.

Seamus Tansey (1943–2022) especially was a labour of love. He and Robin had met in the 60s but hardly again until they encountered one another at the great first “Crossroads Conference” of 1996, when Tansey delivered a blistering attack on the forces of ‘innovation’ in Irish music, and Robin was astonished to learn that this, among the greatest of Irish flute players, had not made a record in twenty years. That was soon rectified and the result is still in the Temple Catalogue.

This led to his, lending his recordings to be digitally copied by ITMA , and later giving them to the Archive where every song or tune, every person mentioned here, may be heard to the benefit of, as Robin always hoped, musicians, singers and researchers alike; untold riches await!

Robin Morton was a pioneer, with Sam Henry and Hugh Shields, among the most important song collectors and disseminators in twentieth century Ulster. His collection is small but his treatment and assessments of the songs and their singers was exemplary. He thought of them as friends, and the mutual respect was palpable.

As a student of song, I appreciate all that, but, as I said, he was my friend – for almost sixty years and his death brought me great sadness but it’s also a matter of great joy that, in his life, my friend made such a difference, to so many and in so many ways!

John Moulden

ITMA would like to thank all those who have contributed to this blog especially Robin’s wife Alison Kinnaird for her generous permission to use the sound recordings in the playlist. We extend our continuing sympathy to Alison, her family, and all Robin’s friends and admirers.

With thanks to Pete Heywood for permission to use images of Robin Morton.

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gallery of images presented below for Heritage Week 2021 comes from the collection of Gráinne Yeats which was donated to ITMA by the Yeats Family in April 2018. Gráinne Yeats (1925-2013) was a professional harper, singer, teacher, arranger, historian and recorded artist. She left an extremely rich collection of printed books, music manuscripts, photographs, slides, lecture scripts, diaries, music arrangements (mostly for the Irish harp), research notes, ephemera, artefacts, and commercial & non-commercial sound recordings.Yeats’ image collection consists of photographs, both in colour and back & white, negatives and a large number of slides, amounting to just over 1,200 items in total. Gráinne’s life-long passion for the Irish harp is very much reflected in this collection. The collection covers a wide range of topics relating to the Irish harp and will be an invaluable resource to all students and enthusiasts of this wonderful instrument.

During a concert tour of Japan in the autumn of 1972 Gráinne and her husband Michael Yeats travelled by train to Fukui city which is located on the Japan Sea coast in the Chubu (central) region of Japan. There they visited the Aoyama harp factory and collected a nylon strung lever harp which had been made especially for Yeats. The gallery includes is a record of their trip to Aoyama on the 9 October 1972. This harp was one of a number of harps that Yeats performed on. It can be heard on the iconic recording published by Gael Linn in 1980 and re-issued in 1992 Féile na gCruitirí Bhéal Feirste 1792: the music collected by Bunting at the historic Belfast Harpers Festival 1792.
The gallery also looks back at the many harp festivals, concerts and events which Gráinne Yeats attended over the years. Below are just a small sample of the many images in the Yeats collection which focus on this aspect of her life. In the course of her career Yeats performed, tutored and lectured extensively in Ireland, Europe and abroad, including a number of tours of North America, Japan, Russia, India and Australia. She was a frequent attendee at international harping events, most notably the World Harp Congress which takes place every three years at different locations around the world. Yeats and Máire Ní Chathasaigh were the first Irish harpers to perform on the Irish harp at the 1993 World Harp Congress in Copenhagen. Some of the other events featured in the images below include: An Churit Chruiterachta, July 1992; ‘Festival for Irish Harp’, Downpatrick, Co. Down, 1988; The World Harp Festival, Belfast, May 1992; O’Carolan Harp Festival, Nobber, Co. Meath, 1992; and the World Harp Congress, Copenhagen, 1993.

Heritage Council Funding 2021

ITMA’s unique image collection now stands at over 21,700 items. Many of these exist in obsolete physical formats only which limits access to this material to those who can visit the ITMA premises in Merrion Square, Dublin. This year (2021) the Heritage Council has awarded ITMA a grant to digitise, preserve and make accessible, to archival best practice, some 4,500+ slides, negatives and photographs from the collections of two highly significant figures in Irish traditional music: Breandán Breathnach (1912-1985) & Gráinne Yeats (1925-2013).

This gallery of images was published for Heritage Week 2021. The images presented below are from Cnuasach an Bhreathnaigh (the Breandán Breathnach Collection) which was the foundation collection of the Irish Traditional Music Archive. Breandán Breathnach, 1912–1985, was a great expert in Irish traditional music — an uilleann piper, collector, publisher, writer and organiser. His collection contains sound recordings, music manuscripts, printed items, a thematic index of dance tunes, and personal papers and was deposited in trust to the Irish Traditional Music Archive by the Breathnach Family in August 1987.
Breathnach’s image collection consists of photographs, both in colour and back & white, negatives, slides, postcards, etc. and covers a wide range of topics relevant to Irish traditional music, song and dance. His huge passion for the uilleann pipes and uilleann piping is very much evident throughout his collection and it will come as no surprise that the vast majority of images in the collection relate in some way to uilleann pipers and uilleann piping. Breathnach was a founder-member of Na Píobairí Uilleann, along with Seán Reid and others, and was the organisation’s chairman from 1968 until his death in 1985. Many of the images below were taken at Tionól held in various parts of the country including Bettytown, Co. Meath and Ennistymon, Co. Clare.
Breathnach also sourced images from a variety of organisations, media outlets, individuals, libraries, archives, galleries and museums. For example we see here a wonderful image of the Castle Céilí Band taken in 1962 by an Independent Newspapers photographer. The clarity and composition of the image are telling signs that this photograph was taken by a professional. The fun of a great evening in the Francis Xavier Hall, Dublin is very much evident in this picture. ITMA is grateful to Independent Newspapers and the National Library of Ireland for permission to reproduce this image here as part of Heritage Week. However, not all images in Cnuasach an Bhreathnaigh were taken by professionals. The image below from 1957 of Willie Clancy at the first Fleadh Cheoil in Miltown Malbay, Co. Clare may have been taken by an amateur photographer (Jim Griffith a visitor from the States) but what a fantastic picture of a young Willie Clancy surrounded by his many adoring fans! This and five other images taken at the same time were sent to Breathnach by Terry Wilson in August 1985. ITMA would like to thank Terry for granting permission to make this image available here.

Heritage Council Funding 2021

ITMA’s unique image collection now stands at over 21,700 items. Many of these exist in obsolete physical formats only which limits access to this material to those who can visit the ITMA premises in Merrion Square, Dublin. This year (2021) the Heritage Council has awarded ITMA a grant to digitise, preserve and make accessible, to archival best practice, some 4,500+ slides, negatives and photographs from the collections of two highly significant figures in Irish traditional music: Breandán Breathnach (1912-1985) & Gráinne Yeats (1925-2013).

ITMA not only collects sound recordings, books and images but also thousands of event flyers, posters, and small artefacts from events around the country.

Known in the archival world as ephemera, they provide in many cases the only documented record of concerts, local sessions, and the life and times of musicians and bands.

We hope this gallery will provide a window into the weird and wonderful world of our ephemera collection.

As part of Heritage Week 2017, ITMA is also running an exhibition in our premises at 73 Merrion Square, which you can read more about here.

ITMA was delighted to hear in April 2022 that it had been awarded a Community Heritage Grant from the Heritage Council for its project “Physical to Digital: A Complete Scanning Solution for the Irish Traditional Music Archive.” This funding has enabled ITMA to purchase a state-of-the-art specialised large format archival scanning system. Presented below is a collection of LP covers which have been digitised for Heritage Week 2022 using this new scanner.

The scanner which was manufactured by I2S a French company who specialise in image capture and processing is A2 in size. This machine enables ITMA to scan a range of large-format materials which we have been unable to do in-house in the past. Materials like large-sized sheet music, posters, LP covers, a wide range of manuscripts, printed books, periodicals and images. This specialised equipment will future-proof the safe in-house digitisation of all this material for many years to come.

Watch the behind-the-scenes video which documents the installation of this new state-of-the-art scanning system and read our Heritage Week blog here.
Heritage Week 2022 – ITMA Scanner – YouTube

The ITMA LP Collection

The Irish Traditional Music Archive has over 4,100 LPs in its collection.

The 1950s was the first full decade in which the new long-playing vinyl discs (LPs) were on sale. Being easily scratched or warped, the discs were sold in stiff cardboard sleeves, unlike their predecessors, the 78 rpm discs, which normally came in printed paper bags (and sometimes in cardboard ‘albums’ like photograph albums). The cardboard sleeves gave record companies the opportunity to use graphic design to set up favourable associations for the music on the records and thus attract customers. The typical disc was 12 inches in diameter (some were 10) and the sleeves provided a large image surface for artists and photographers. (Nicholas Carolan, 1 October 2011)

The LPs presented here are from a collection recently donated to ITMA by the Mac Ionnraic Family. They mostly date from the 1970s and 1980s with one published in 1968 by Gael Linn – Trup, trup, a chapaillín. The collection includes recordings of Irish and English language songs as well as instrumental music. Many of the artists and groups popular at the time are represented in this collection including Clannad, De Dannan, The Black Family, Moving Hearts, etc.

The selection presented here is only the tip of the iceberg, with this new large-format scanner ITMA hopes in time to scan every LP cover in its collection!

Another gallery of LP sleeve designs from the 1950s is available below.

With thanks to the Mac Ionnraic Family.

Since 2006 the Irish Traditional Music Archive has been in a productive partnership with The Journal of Music in Ireland (JMI) in publishing in each issue of the journal a black-and-white archival image from its collections on some aspect of Irish traditional music (as well as extensive listings of recent publications). Each image has accompanying text by Nicholas Carolan.

In 2007 the JMI became an online journal as well as continuing to publish in hardcopy, and the Archive’s images are now available on the JMI site. In 2008 the JMI became the Journal of Music with which the project continues.

With thanks to editor Toner Quinn and JM staff. With thanks also for the donation of photographs to ITMA and for other facilitation to the Breathnach Family, Luke Cheevers, Ken Garland, the Irish Examiner, Antain Mac Lochlainn, Liam McNulty, Pat McNulty, the National Library of Ireland, O’Donoghue’s public house, Merrion Row, Dublin, the Gerard O’Grady Family, J.B. Vallely, & the directors of the Willie Clancy Summer School. ITMA always welcomes such donations or the opportunity to copy such materials.

Nicholas Carolan & Treasa Harkin, 1 August 2008

After the concertina had been introduced to Ireland from Britain by concert recitalists of the 1830s, and was sold, manufactured and taught in Dublin from the 1850s, it spread throughout the country, in various forms, as a mass-produced instrument of popular music. By the end of the century, it had also been taken up widely by players of Irish traditional music, and its adoption coincided with the growing popularity of quadrille-style set dances among traditional dancers.

But the concertina began to fall from favour in the 1920s, eclipsed in most parts of the country by the new louder accordions, and by gramophones as sources of music for dancers. It retained its popularity however in Co Clare, to such an extent that by the 1960s it was being thought of as a purely Clare instrument. This popularity is reflected in the gallery of concertina images presented below from the collections of the Irish Traditional Music Archive.

In the last three or four decades however, with increasing prosperity, the growing availability of high-quality tuition and instruments, and of recordings by virtuoso players, the concertina has once again become a national Irish instrument.

With thanks to photographers and photograph donors Fran O’Rourke, Liam McNulty, Joe Dowdall, Chris Corlett, Orla Henihan, Danny Diamond, Steven de Paoire, & Susie Cox, and to Mick O’Connor for information. ITMA would always welcome the donation of other photographs of concertina players.

Nicholas Carolan & Treasa Harkin, 1 February 2014

For as far back as we have evidence, singing traditional songs and playing traditional music in public houses have been part of Irish culture, especially on fair-days and other communal occasions and among Irish emigrant groups abroad. This trend grew with increased prosperity from the 1960s, until it is nowadays taken by newcomers to the music that pub sessions are almost synonymous with the practice of Irish traditional music.

The selection of photographs of playing the music in pubs presented here from the collections of the Irish Traditional Music Archive come from a variety of social occasions, from the rare fleadhanna ceoil of the 1950s to the more common festivals and summer schools of more recent decades. From the circumstances of the events, the pictures are usually snapshots taken on the fly, and more considered studies of pub sessions are uncommon and usually stiff and unconvincing.

With thanks to donors of photographs Maura McConnell, William Mullen, Tom Maree, Liam McNulty & Mark Jolley, and also to Fáilte Ireland for permission to reproduce photographs from its collection. ITMA would welcome indentification of musicians unknown to it in these photographs. Contributions please to info@itma.ie.

Nicholas Carolan & Treasa Harkin, 1 December 2014

Essentially, everyone who learns an Irish traditional tune is a collector of the music, and most interested people will have a memorised collection, even if they don’t sing or play an instrument. But what is normally meant by the term are those dedicated individuals who amass over time large numbers of songs and melodies and preserve them on a variety of paper media or on sound or video recordings. They may partly be motivated by personal or commercial considerations, but most collectors are altruistic, driven by a wish to preserve and share something that they themselves enjoy and value. Some may in time publish items from their collections.

The collectors featured in this gallery from the collections of the Irish Traditional Music Archive range from those of the 18th and 19th centuries who of necessity collected with pen and paper and had the rare skill of being able to jot down melodies at first hearings, to those modern collectors with the no less valuable skill of operating audio and video technology to faithfully convey the reality of live performance. A debt is owed to all of them for enabling people now and in the future to experience the past of the music, and for providing materials for its ongoing re-creation.

Also here while it is still active is a link to a recent RTÉ ‘Nationwide’ programme (this programme is no longer available on the RTÉ Player) which featured the work of the collectors Jim Carroll and Pat Mackenzie on the occasion of their recordings being made available through the Clare County Library here. An ITMA feature on their Irish collections can be found below.

With thanks to Colette Moloney, Ríonach uí Ógáin, Peter Browne, & Lisa Shields.

Nicholas Carolan & Treasa Harkin, 1 June 2015

‘Shamrock, Rose and Thistle’ is an appropriate metaphor for the mixed Irish, English and Scottish strands that make up the English-language song tradition of the north of Ireland, and it is also the title of an important collection-study made of this tradition by Hugh Shields: the book Shamrock, Rose and Thistle: Folk Singing in North Derry, which was first published in Belfast in 1981 and is long out of print.

It contains lyrics and meticulously detailed musical transcriptions for seventy-four English-language songs, several in multiple versions, collected in the field from 1961 to 1975 in the coastal area of Magilligan in north Co Derry, and presented with extensive musical, linguistic, social and bibliographic documentation. The physical region is described, its history outlined, and an account given of its singers – chief among them being Eddie Butcher – and of their singing practices and songs.

Courtesy of the Shields family, this classic volume is now made available once again on this site of the Irish Traditional Music Archive, greatly expanded by multimedia enhancements made possible by online technology.