Music and song collected by Séamus Ennis in the 1940s and recreated by contemporary singers and musicians associated with the same locality.  Presented by Ríonach uí Ógáin, with thanks to the National Folklore Collection  and the Arts Council

Séamus Ennis is remembered for the most part as a piper par excellence. However he was also a collector, broadcaster, singer and raconteur. His appointment with the Irish Folklore Commission spanned the years 1942 to 1947 and the results of his fieldwork contain a wide variety of material, with an emphasis on traditional music and song. His work brought him to the west of Ireland and most of the material is in Irish. His collecting tools consisted of pen and paper although he made a small number of sound recordings according as sound recording equipment, primarily the Ediphone, was made available for some field trips. As a result, the bulk of the songs, tunes and airs from Ennis exist in manuscript form alone. The Ennis music transcriptions amount to some 600 songs and tunes, with songs accounting for around three quarters.  Ennis built relationships with singers and musicians inside and outside their homes, as people willingly gave their music and song to him. The dance music was transcribed from lilting and whistling for the most part with a small amount of instrumental music from accordion, fiddle and uilleann pipes. Following his initial documentation of the staff notation and words of tunes and songs, Séamus Ennis then transcribed the music from his field notes to the manuscripts now found in the the National Folklore Collection,UCD. 

This project, funded by the Arts Council, highlights the importance of understanding earlier fieldwork followed by an archival process. Crucially, it gives an insight into archival material which is the result of ethnographic fieldwork. Older transcriptions have been given new life and interpretation as contemporary performers engage with the work of Séamus Ennis as fieldworker and transcriber. The manuscript material provides a provenance and original performer. 

Singers and musicians have been invited to investigate and interpret some of the songs and music in the Ennis Collection. After the performers had chosen their particular transcriptions, they then engaged with tunes and songs collected at a given time and in a given place. Singers and musicians were then recorded. The transcriptions capture the exchange involved in fieldwork. The initiative allows for a combination of recognition of the work of Séamus Ennis, of the material itself and of the archive, while being also true to contemporary singers and musicians. It generates a fresh relationship of our current time to the archive. 

The project offered an opportunity for performers to interpret handwritten, archival transcriptions at will. They have given new insights and new life rather than imitation.  The transcriptions have provided a framework while at the same time enabling the artists’ innovation, interpretation and creativity. 

Ríonach uí Ogáin, May 2022

Le Buíochas / With thanks

Na ceoltóirí agus na fonnadóirí, the musicians and singers, An Chomhairle Ealaíon, Marty Curran, Adam Girard, Treasa Harkin, Cnuasach Bhéaloideas Éireann, Leabharlann na Breataine, Neansaí Ní Choisdealbha, Peigí Ní Thuathail, Garry Ó Briain, Damien Ó Dónaill, Máire O’Keeffe, Gwyn Ó Murchú, JJ O’Shea, Tom Sherlock, Lisa Shields.  Séamus Ennis photograph courtesy of Anna, Mary agus Nóra Ní Chadhain.

Des Gallagher is ITMA’s photographer in residence for 2023 and has been busily taking photographs at various ITMA and non-ITMA events since January.  The gallery here is a selection of his images taken at:
TradFest, Dublin, 28 January 2023;
Drawing from the Well, National Concert Hall, 12 March 2023;
Gradam Ceoil TG4, University Concert Hall, Limerick on 23 April 2023;
Tradition Now: Reflecting Migrations at the National Concert Hall, 11 June 2023;
The Willie Clancy Summer School, Miltown Malbay, Co. Clare, July 2023;
Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, Mullingar, August 2023;
and the March and August Sessions with the Pipers in the Cobblestone, Dublin.

Des is also preparing his vast archive of photographs of events for inclusion in the ITMA Collection.

Compositions

1. Fathach an fhidil (do Seán Keane) [comp. Aoife Ní Bhriain], march
2. Buachaill na haille [comp. Aoife Ní Bhriain] polka
3. An tUasal Mac Taidhg [comp. Aoife Ní Bhriain], reel
4. An cailín fionn [comp. Aoife Ní Bhriain], jig
5. Gairdín na Ghleanna [comp. Aoife Ní Bhriain], barn dance

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.

This Heritage Week watch the behind-the-scenes video below which documents the installation of this new state-of-the-art scanning system.

Also during Heritage Week 2022 ITMA features a selection of large-format material including sheet music, vinyl LP covers and posters digitised and curated to highlight the impact of this essential equipment purchase.

Items from the ITMA Sheet Music Collection Digitised for Heritage Week 2022

ITMA has over 3,800 items of sheet music in its collection.

“Irish popular song and music of many kinds (including national music and traditional music) has been published in sheet-music form in Ireland since the 18th century.

Mainly publication has been in English, but since the early 20th century also in Irish. The lines between Irish popular and traditional song and music are hard to define, and the genres have significant resemblances. Often sheet-music material that is created by known poets and composers for commercial, literary, or other cultural purposes, enters oral tradition and comes to be considered as of anonymous origin.

The Irish Traditional Music Archive accordingly collects Irish popular sheet music as representing a dimension of Irish traditional music. It presents here a selection of these sheets.” (Nicholas Carolan, 1 October 2008)

The selection digitised for Heritage Week 2022 here dates from the early 1800s right up to the 1930s. Included are songs in Irish and English as well as some instrumental pieces, with items published in Ireland, England and the United States of America. The selection gives a very good overview of the many different genres of sheet mu

Items from the ITMA LP Collection Digitised for Heritage Week 2022

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 all 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!

Items from the ITMA Poster Collection Digitised for Heritage Week 2022.

The Irish Traditional Music Archive has 1000s of posters in its collection.

The humble poster still catches the attention in spite of the increasing use of electronic advertising media in Irish traditional music, and it brings to public notice festivals, summer and winter schools, concerts, recitals, dances and classes, and a whole variety of publications. The effect of posters has been noticeably enhanced in modern times by increasing local expertise in graphic design and computerised printing, and they are likely to continue to decorate shop windows and pub walls far into the future.

The poster has a secondary, archival value: it serves as a record of events and the places in which they take place, the performers who appear at them, the groups in which they appear, the instruments they play, and a range of other information, from prices to other advertising techniques. Often the poster remains as the only record of a musical event and the people who participated in it. For these reasons, the Irish Traditional Music Archive has always actively collected posters (along with flyers, programmes, and other advertising material). (Nicholas Carolan, 1 April 2010

Presented here are a selection of Irish music posters from three different sources in the ITMA collection. The first is a collection of posters donated to ITMA recently by Paddy Glackin. The posters mainly focus on Dublin based events in the 1970s and 1980s in venues such as Trinity College and Liberty Hall. The second selection of posters is from the Tomás Ó Canainn collection which was donated to ITMA by his family in 2020. These posters date from the 1970s and feature the Cork group Na Filí which Tomás founded in the late 1960s with fiddler Matt Cranitch and whistle player Tom Barry. Finally a selection of poster from ITMA’s collection is also featured below.

Other ITMA poster galleries are available here and here.

During the week the group was mentored by ITMA Assistant Librarian Róisín Conlon. After a week in ITMA she asked musicians Niamh McGrattan, fiddle, Aoileann O’Connor, fiddle, Naoise Ní Ghríofa, concertina, and Róisín Ní Chasaide, fiddle, to recount their personal highlights, and the collaborative projects they undertook, including recording a tune for Mary Bergin!

Is mise Róisín Ní Chasaide

agus rinne mé seachtain taithí oibre mar pháirt don idirbhliain san ITMA. I play the fiddle, sing sean-nós, and play the piano. I’ve been playing the fiddle since the age of four.

Traditional bands and soloists such as Steve Cooney, Martin Hayes, Liam O’Flynn, and composers like Seán O Riada, have had a great influence on my own playing. My father, Odhrán Ó Casaide, teaches me a lot of my traditional tunes and explains the history and culture of traditional music and the great Irish players that date back to O’Carolan, the Belfast Harp Festival, and Bunting.

The work experience in ITMA was very enjoyable and I learnt a lot in the space of a week: ag eagrú sa leabharlann, ag catalogú, ag seinm séiseanna nua le na cailíní eile – agus thaifead muid iad- agus ag eagrú ephemera ó Chontae Aontroma.

Bhí sé an-suimúil agus bhain mé sult as, bhí gach duine an-deas agus cabhrach chomh maith.                                                                                                                      — Róisín

Is mise Aoileann Ní Chonchubhair

agus rinne mé seachtain anseo san ITMA mar phairt do thaithí oibre don idirbhliain. I play the fiddle and concertina.

I enjoy listening to Irish music, especially fiddle playing and uilleann piping. Michael Coleman, Séan Keane, Frank O’Higgins, Noel Hill, Séamus Ennis and Lad O’Beirne are some of the musicians that influence me.

My family are all very encouraging, especially my grandad Mick O’Connor, as he always shares rare recordings and shows me old photographs of musicians from the older generations. Liam O’Connor has taught me a lot of my repertoire and is a great teacher and influence on me.

I attend a good few Irish music festivals during the summer including Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy, Scoil Acla, Meitheal and fleadhanna.

D’fhoghlaim mé conas catalógú a dhéanamh, cúrsaí eagrúcháin sa leabharlann, ag eagrú póstaerí ón am atá thart, ag éisteacht le go leor ceol.                          — Aoileann

My name is Niamh Mc Grattan

and I’m a fiddle player from Clondalkin, Dublin. I began playing music because my Mam and most of my Dad’s family play various instruments.

I started to learn the fiddle when I was 9 years old in the Cobblestone Pub with Jackie Martin, and later on with Liam O’Connor. As well as lessons, in the summer I go to music summer schools such as the Willie Clancy Summer School in Clare and Scoil Acla in Achill Island.  It’s great listening to musicians such as Michael Coleman, Kevin Burke, Tommy Peoples and more.

I went to ITMA for a week for work experience. It was really interesting to learn about the archive and how everything works. During the week we did cataloguing, CD and book shelving, ephemera sorting and we recorded a tune using the archive’s filming equipment.

All in all, it was a great week and I really enjoyed it.                                            — Niamh

And the recording for Mary Bergin ….

As you know the Archive is hosting three special concerts in the National Concert Hall to celebrate the donation of the Liam O’Flynn Collection to ITMA.

As part of the preparations ITMA Director Liam O’Connor would like to put a spotlight on some of the hidden gems that have been uncovered in the Liam O’Flynn Collection. One of the most noteworthy discoveries comes in the form of two previously unpublished jigs composed by Liam O’Flynn The Return of the Pedalboard and The Piper’s Stone. ITMA Archivist Maeve Gebruers has shared news of the collection including Liam’s compositions in the latest issue of An Píobaire

Among the Liam O’Flynn papers are a number of original compositions by the piper. Working in collaboration with Na Píobairí Uilleann, ITMA is delighted to publish two of Liam’s compositions for the first time in this edition of An Píobaire. Contextual notes in O’Flynn’s own words accompany each tune.

Maeve Gebruers, ‘Liam O’Flynn collection in ITMA’, An Píobaire 16, no. 1 (2020)

In order to make the material even more accessible Liam O’Connor decided to make a recording of these compositions and circulate it to the artists taking part in the concerts as an inspiration for their set lists But, who would ITMA task to create the recording for Mary Bergin and the other performers?

Of course he left it in the very capable hands of our four TY musicians! The ladies embraced the task with enthusiasm and precision, and the proof is in the playing.

And so here we proudly present Liam O’Flynn tunes The Return of the Pedalboard and The Piper’s Stone played by Aoileann O’Connor, fiddle, Róisín Ní Chasaide, fiddle, Naoise Ní Ghríofa, concertina, and Niamh McGrattan, fiddle. Recorded at the Irish Traditional Music Archive, January 2020.

Patrick’s Arrival

Sung by Barry Gleeson at the Góilín Singers Club, Tom Maye’s Pub, Dorset Street, Dublin, 12 March 2004.

From the Brian Doyle Collection 

You’ve heard of St. Denis of France he never had much for to brag on
You’ve heard of St. George and his lance who killed d’old heathenish dragon
The saints of the Welshmen and Scot are a couple of pitiful pipers
And might just as well go to pot when compared to the patron of vipers
St. Patrick of Ireland my dear.

He sailed to the Emerald Isle on a lump of pavin’ stone mounted
He beat the steamboat by a mile which mighty good sailing was counted
Says he The salt water I think has made me unmerciful thirsty
So bring me a flagon to drink to wash down the mullygrups burst ye
Of drink that is fit for a Saint.

He preached then with wonderful force the ignorant natives a teaching
With pints he washed down each discourse for says he I detest your dry preaching
The people in wonderment struck at a pastor so pious and civil
Exclaimed We’re for you my old buck and we’ll heave our blind Gods to the divil
Who dwells in hot water below.

This finished, our worshipful man went to visit an elegant fellow
Whose practise each cool afternoon was to get most delightful mellow
That day with a barrel of beer he was drinking away with abandon
Say’s Patrick It’s grand to be here drank nothing to speak of since landing
So give me a pull from your pot.

He lifted the pewter in sport believe me I tell you it’s no fable
A gallon he drank from the quart and left it back full on the table
A miracle everyone cried and all took a pull on the Stingo
They were mighty good hands at that trade and they drank ’til they fell yet by jingo
The pot it still frothed o’er the brim.

Next day said the host It’s a fast and I’ve nothing to eat but cold mutton
On Fridays who’d make such repast except an un-christian-like glutton
Said Pat Stop this nonsense I beg what you tell me is nothing but gammon
When the host brought down the lamb’s leg Pat ordered to turn it to salmon
And the leg most politely complied.

You’ve heard I suppose long ago how the snakes in a manner most antic
He marched to the county Mayo and ordered them all into the Atlantic
Hence never use water to drink the people of Ireland determine
With mighty good reason I think for Patrick has filled it with vermin
And snakes and such other things.

He was a fine man as you’d meet from Fairhead to Kilcrumper
Though under the sod he is laid let’s all drink his health in a bumper
I wish he was here that my glass he might by art magic replenish
But since he is not why alas my old song must come to a finish because all the liquor is gone.

Song words attributed to: William Maginn (1794-1842)

Gaelic League London, 1901-1905

To celebrate St Patrick’s Day in 1901, the Gaelic League in London organised a mass at Holy Trinity Church, Dockhead, Bermondsy in which the responses where in Irish. This service proved very popular among the London Irish community and grew to become a regular feature of the calendar.  In 1905 the event moved to Westminster Cathedral.

In the ITMA Collection there are three original booklets from those early masses in 1901, 1902 and 1905. As well as the mass rites in latin, Irish and English, they feature the music and words to familiar hymns in the tradition like Dóchas Linn Naomh Pádraig and Gabhaim Mólta Bhríde and remind us that the celebration of St. Patrick’s Day has been an international event for over one hundred years.

Shown below is the cover of the booklet from the first Gaelic service at Westminster Cathedral, 1905.

St. Patrick’s Day Set Dance

Irish dance continues to serve as an enduring emblem of St. Patrick’s Day festivities, lending colour and spectacle to parades across the globe. 

It is therefore perhaps unsurprising to know that there is a dance and tune specifically named after our patron saint and the festival.

St. Patrick’s Day is a traditional set dance that is believed to have originated in Limerick, and has endured as a popular dance among the Irish diaspora.  One of the most common versions of the set dance is credited to the early 20th century composer, Stephen Comerford. 

Orfhlaith Ní Bhriain writes that the aim of the set dance is to highlight “the virtuosity and technical prowess of the individual dancer”. (Terminology of Irish dance, 2008). There is no better exemplar of this, than the late Celine Tubridy. Watch her version of the St. Patrick’s Day set dance featured at the Willie Clancy Summer School in 2004. She is accompanied by her husband Michael Tubridy on flute.

We also thank Orfhlaith Ní Bhriain and Mick McCabe for permission to share an excerpt on the St. Patrick’s Day step dance from their 2018 publication From jigs to Jacobites (https://trad.dance/)

Written, researched and presented by ITMA Staff

Q1 

This commission, a partnership between Clare Arts Office and the Irish Traditional Music Archive was pioneering in many ways. Can you recall what initially drew you to the idea?

Jack: 

I remember being particularly curious about the fact that the commission call mentioned that this opportunity was open to practitioners from many artforms. I don’t usually let application guidelines influence me too much as I feel like that is a bit like putting the cart before the horse but having said that, I liked the idea that this wasn’t about trying to just create a new piece of Irish traditional music. The archival materials at ITMA can speak for themselves and don’t necessarily need any intervention from me or anybody else, in terms of the actual performance of traditional music. 

So, I was keen not just to write new traditional tunes and play them with archival footage, for example, because I felt that if people wanted to hear great concertina music, we could have just played archival material of people like Sonny Murray (who we discovered some incredible and rare footage of in the process of making Duala).

So for me, the ambition was to actually avoid making a piece of original traditional music but instead, draw on the world of traditional music and musicians associated with county Clare, to make something new, positioning our feelings about place and where we are from, at the heart of the project. 

And naturally, as a Clareman who has always spent a lot of time at ITMA, this project seemed like a dream prospect.  

Maurice: 

The commission was really inspiring as it allowed us to explore our own areas of expertise, and then to combine them in film format. 

Having spent a lot of my childhood visiting relations in East Clare, and summer’s around Spanish Point, and for the Willie Clancy Festival, it felt like a very personal project to immerse myself into those memories. I’ve been visiting Willie Week almost every year and have been photographing little observational moments, just to record them, without any intention to use them, to archive my own experience of being there. Often when we look back at photographs, be they our own, or others, a new relevance can be associated with them that was never imagined when they were first taken. This commission allowed me to reflect on those thoughts and memories, and to also remind me to continue to see some aspects of the world through the prism of the camera and not just through my own eye.

Q2

The piece opens with a song called Farewell to Lissycasey by Siney Crotty? Can you tell us a little about that choice of song and what it means to you? 

Jack: 

I’m from Lissycasey in county Clare so the song naturally resonates with me as one which has made people familiar with the name of our village but I suppose what is more relevant here is that it is the first ‘pride of place’ song that I ever heard. Of course, I recognise the placenames referenced in it so it feels localised and personal to me. Many people sing this song but I’ve always especially loved Siney Crotty’s version. In terms of integrating the song in Duala, I felt it was important to open the piece with an untouched statement about place that we didn’t musically intervene in. Also, in an usual way, I love the way that the song gradually changes key as it progresses. Too often when people use audio materials for digital manipulation or synthesis, the source audio is modified for convenience. Instead I was keen here to work with Siney’s interpretation just as he recorded it.

Q3

Can you speak a little more about why theme of place is so important in Duala? 

Jack: 

I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of place and place identity. While place obviously connects us to our region and the communities that we inhabit, I think of place as a metaphysical phenomenon that encapsulates diverse feelings such as nostalgia, pride, sentimentality, and melancholy. Because archival materials can powerfully evoke past memories, we felt that this was a perfect project for exploring a theme that we were already very interested in. Although place and community is so central to Irish traditional music, we don’t often foreground that significance because we prefer playing traditional music to expressing our thoughts about it. Therefore, this was a great opportunity to unpack how traditional musicians perceive their place and its role in their identity formation.   

Q4

The archival film footage was fascinating to watch, can you explain why you choose those pieces.

Maurice: 

We had sourced some great film material in the archive, and the hardest part was deciding which of it to use, as this meant making the choice not to include some great clips we were working with. 

Eugene Lambe recorded some fascinating material in particular which we really wanted to use, but in the end made a decision to leave it out, as it didn’t fit the narrative we were trying to create. 

We had found beautiful footage filmed in the ‘60s by Leenart Malmer from Sweden. I really liked the slow observational shots that he captured, a photographer’s eye behind the lens. The footage had its own narrative, with a Swedish voiceover, so we took the footage and started laying Jack’s audio over and seeing how it worked. I wanted the integrity of the original edit by Malmer to be maintained, rather than cutting his timeline up, so we let these long sections of his footage play. This really allowed the music and interviews to work well, to be heard, too many fast cuts would have been a little distracting, we wanted the audience to immerse themselves in the experience. 

From the beginning we had envisaged that the film would play on a loop in a gallery, and the audience to join it anywhere along, and that the impact would be similar if you saw it all, or just some of it. We plan to show it again in that format in 2021.

Q5

You included some specially recorded interviews with musicians for the piece. Can you tell us about that process? 

Jack: 

We thought it would be important to portray the importance of place to Irish traditional music and musicians in a very direct and explicit way. While many visual representations of landscapes and our environment in both film and photography can immediately make us feel the profound power of place, these feelings are often internalised and hidden or embedded in the music that we play, and can remain unexpressed in verbal form.

So as you can imagine, we couldn’t find archival recordings that included these kinds of conversations among musicians. This is why we decided to reach out to some musicians to begin a conversation on what place means to them. 

I think the result is important because these observations and contributions signpost a lot of the thematic content in Duala. Given our focus on county Clare, that is where each contributor is based. I’m really glad that Martin Hayes, Geraldine Cotter, Claire Egan, Liam O’Brien and Caoilfhionn Ní Fhrighil agreed to be involved because chatting to them was a very rewarding experience and I think it allowed us to communicate many ideas that existed in our own minds, in a less abstract and more direct way. 

Q6

Could you speak about the inclusion of some very interesting quotes that were dispersed throughout the piece in text form? 

Jack: 

Again, we thought it would be interesting to signpost some of the concepts behind Duala. They also helped to connect this very specific investigation of place identity in Irish traditional music with what others have expressed when speaking more generally about human experience. Having markers like that also allowed us some freedom with the original videography and music composition as we didn’t rely on these elements alone to tell our story.  

Q7 

You’ve both worked together at Raelach Records for a number of years. What was the working process like for Duala? Did the music or video come first or vice versa?

Jack:

It was great. We work together regularly so that made the process much easier. There are times when we allow archival visual and audio material tell its own story but the process of composing and arranging the newly-composed elements had to be considered carefully so we could each allow the other to respond. So practically, in some instances, Maurice’s video led the way by providing me with some material to respond to in musical terms. Likewise, at other times I composed original music for later consideration by Maurice. Ultimately we both had editorial control so either one of us were to free to make suggestions on how the piece was developing as a whole.

Maurice:

This was an interesting question that was asked during the Q+A in Glór, Ennis, when we screened Duala there for Culture Night. 

I had been filming in many different locations throughout Clare, and been reviewing those on my own. Jack had started recording the interviews with the featured musicians. I think Jack shared the full-length interviews with me, and these were around 30 minutes long. I kept note of what was spoken about, key words and phrases that resonated with me, and from these notes continued filming locations in County Clare. I was using these interviews as source material and combining them with my own memories, recent and past, of being in the county.

 We had so much relevant archival material to work with from the archive too, hours of audio interviews, hours of what I had captured on camera: then the fun started. 

I began with the timeline, we decided on 25 minutes, and I laid down the archive material and the original footage. Over several months then, we would continue to work on it remotely. Jack would send me the audio file, I’d insert that into the edit, and I’d respond to that by moving footage around, deleting some, adding from my own footage, finding more great material in the archive, and eventually we got to the point where we said, it’s done. 

ITMA and Clare Arts Office would like to thank everyone who co-operated and contributed to the making of Duala: a film.

The film remains freely available to watch on the ITMA YouTube Channel. Please enjoy and share.

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit in March 2020 and ITMA staff had to work from home, we were in a very good position.  We have had the ability to log-on to the ITMA network remotely for a number of years now, so accessing our digital and born-digital collections was not an issue. 

ITMA holds both physical and born digital material, including large volumes of digital surrogates created as a result of years of digitisation work carried out on our analogue audio/audio-visual collections, as well as our photographic and print collections. Our digital collections have grown to a size of just over 97 + terabytes, which equates to hundreds of thousands of files. The long-term digital preservation of these files is a huge challenge for ITMA and creating the infrastructure to preserve a growing digital collection is now one of our key priorities. 

Producing projects from home such as the Highlights from Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy 1986–2020 was made possible because of digital preservation projects such as The Digital Audio/visual Preservation (DAP) Project funded by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht as part of their national digitisation investment programme. This saw the digitisation of over 2,500 carriers. These were all media formats that were no longer widely used and were in danger of degrading to the point where the information on them may have been lost. 

<p>There have been positives to working from home during this pandemic but of course many negatives. You miss the camaraderie of your fellow staff and those informal chats over a cup of tea in the canteen. But I think what I have missed the most as an archivist is being away from all the wonderful physical collections which we house here in ITMA.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Over the last number of years ITMA has benefitted from the generous donation of large multi-media collections from significant members of the traditional music community. The on-going preservation of these collections is an area of work which could not be done remotely and had to be paused during the pandemic. At the beginning of September 2020 when the <a href=”https://www.heritagecouncil.ie/” target=”_blank”>Heritage Council</a> announced that it was opening its Community Heritage Grant Scheme, which is part of the Heritage Council’s Rebuilding Heritage: Covid-19 Stimulus Fund, ITMA took this opportunity to apply for funding to continue work on the preservation of these physical collections.&nbsp;</p>

ITMA’s project application, Boscaí Ceoil: Preserving the legacy of traditional musicians was successful and at the beginning of October 2020 ITMA was awarded funding to re-house, preserve and enable responsible public access to the personal multimedia archives of: Derek Bell (1935-2002) Chieftains harper, oboist, arranger, composer, researcher and recorded artist; Gráinne Yeats (1925-2013) professional female harper, teacher, arranger and recorded artist; Tomás Ó Canainn (1930-2013) uilleann piper, composer, researcher, lecturer and recorded artist; Hugh & Lisa Shields (1929-2008 HS) collector, researcher, publisher, author and lecturer.

What does a Heritage Council project like this entail?

The funding from the Heritage Council enabled ITMA to purchase specialised archival boxes, binders, folders and labels from suppliers of archival equipment. Just under 260 acid free boxes and clam-shell binders were purchased from a company in Wicklow called the Archival Box Company, 750 four flap archival board folders were purchased from Secol and 300 specialised labels from Conservation by Design, both companies which are based in the UK. All equipment was delivered by the beginning of November but unfortunately by this time ITMA had closed again due to new Covid restrictions. 

Work began with the music manuscripts which form part of the Derek Bell Collection. The Derek Bell collection was donated to ITMA by Derek’s widow Stefanie Bell in 2015. Stefanie was introduced to ITMA by Lindsay Armstrong, one of Bell’s first music pupils. The collection contains music manuscripts, sound recordings, printed items, photographs, personal papers, artefacts, musical instruments etc. which were compiled by Derek Bell during his lifetime.

The music manuscripts had been categorised by Stint intern, Casey Burgess in 2016 but were still housed in old plastic containers. The manuscripts have now been re-housed in large A3 sized clam-shell acid free binders and a box-list of what each binder contains has been created in an Excel spreadsheet. This collection contains many wonderful items including original music arrangements for The Chieftains, a number of original compositions by Derek Bell and arrangements for some of the ‘stars’ who have appeared with the Chieftains over the years including Van Morrison, Mark Knopfler, The Pogues, etc. 

Another collection which has benefitted from Heritage Council funding is the Gráinne Yeats Collection. This collection arrived in ITMA in April 2018 following a meeting with Gráinne’s daughter Caitríona Yeats and Harp Ireland Chair, Aibhlín McCrann. It is 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 (acetates, vinyl, reel-to-reels, audio cassettes etc.). Gráinne’s huge interest in the Irish harp is very much reflected in this collection. 

Because of the varied nature of this collection a number of different sized boxes, folders and binders are needed to re-house the collection. Old plastic pockets, and different filing systems, like those seen in the picture above are disposed of and any metal paper clips and staples are removed. A general list of files in each box has been created in an Excel spreadsheet and this will form the basis of a more detailed catalogued of the whole collection in time. 

Work will now continue on the detailed cataloguing and digitisation of all these collections.

ITMA would like to thank the Heritage Council for this generous funding and for enabling us to continue with the work of preserving these important collections for present use and for future generations.  

This blog was written by Maeve Gebruers, ITMA Archivist.

Discovering the secrets of the Gaelic harp: a comparative performance of “The Butterfly”, arranged by Ann Heymann ; performed by Emmanuel Rivera Angel.

The time I have spent in the Irish Traditional Music Archive has unveiled many secrets of a musical tradition very new to me. I am a Colombian harpist classically trained on the pedal harp, and as my career interests brought me to Ireland, ITMA quickly became one of the places where I got to discover Irish harping.

It didn’t take long before I realized the way the harp is approached in Irish traditional music is very different to what I was used to; its orally transmitted tunes and techniques, its thousands of years history, the diverse and dynamic roles the instrument has had in the musical scene and as a symbol of the country – a vast universe with many ways to approach it. As I wondered how to take my first steps I found Ann Heymann’s book.

Secrets of the Gaelic harp : a method for clairseach based on remnants of the Gaelic oral tradition : including the first tunes taught student harpers / by Ann Heymann.  Clairseach Publications, 1988

The title caught my eye immediately. The introduction explained how this was a method written in a time where there was not much for people who wanted to learn to play the instrument, and had no contact with the orally based community; a perfect fit!

But before we advance further into the content of the book, let’s take a moment to clarify what the word clairseach in the title means.

Also called wire-strung, or ancient traditional, clairseach is the Irish word for harp, and in this case is used to name one of the oldest versions of the instrument, the one that you might associate with bards, and that holds many differences to its more contemporary versions.

The image to the right side is an example of these harps; considerably smaller than the pedal harp to which I am used to, this instrument has strings made out of brass or other metal, and it’s played with long fingernails creating a very unique sonority that other versions of harps don’t have. The way you position the instrument is also different, inverted, so left shoulder is the one holding the instrument instead of the right, the left hand playing the higher notes and the right hand the lower…a perfect mirror to the technique I was taught!

In comparison, you can see on the picture to the left the harp I tend to carry around; an electro-acoustic lever harp from the brand Harpsicle Harps. Differently from the wire-strung harp, this harp has nylon strings instead of metal, is played with the finger pads and is held on the right shoulder, which corresponds to a more modern way of performing the instrument.

Going back to Ann Heymann’s book, as I continued my reading I discovered that the author was presenting a method that placed muffling as the essential secret of the clairseach. Muffling is the technique to control the ringing of the strings, because if the harpist doesn’t stop the string that he played, it will reverberate indefinitely, which will provoke an undesired mixing of sounds. There are many techniques to do so, yet, the way proposed by this method was completely different, and as I tried to implement it I pretty much felt as if I was learning a different instrument.

This page is included in the book as an instruction of this muffling technique, which basically consists of an overlapping notation written in red that guides which finger needs to stop a note in a specific moment. To do so, the numbers over each note tell you where should each finger be at all times, weather on a string or waiting to be placed. With this technical approach I embarked to learn “The Butterfly”, which is the second tune included in her book.

While I was learning to play the tune in this manner I was surprised of how different it sounded, and so I recorded both the version taught on Heymann’s book and a version that did not include her indications, which serve as a little example of how harp playing can be so different between traditions, and how a simple tune can show this differences. I have included the original score from the method and a transcribed version that takes out the red notation, in order to follow along with the videos.

Commercial Sound Recordings

Abarta, Joey (uilleann pipes), King of the blind. Joey Abarta and Nathan Gourley, 2023. 1 CD.

Connolly, Adrian (fiddle, accordion, piano, flute, guitar, composer), Adrian Connolly. Adrian Connolly, 2022. 1 CD + digital download.

Jimmy & Scots Folkband (composer, instrumental group), Seven Irish nights. Maxy Sound, 2023. 1 CD.

The London Lasses (instrumental group), LL25. 2023. 1 CD + digital download.

Lyons, Liam (flute, singing in English, instrumental group, composer). Paddy in the van. 2022. 1 CD.

McElroy, Kevin (singing in English, instrumental music), Better late than never. Kevin McElroy, 1994. Re-release. Digital download

Ní Bheaglaíoch, Sesoaimhín (singing in Irish, singing in English), Charlie Piggott (accordion), Gerry Harrington (fiddle), Peter Browne (pipes), The lark on the strand. 2022. 1 CD + digital download.

Ó Súilleabháin, Diarmuid (singing in Irish), Diarmuidín. Éigse Dhiarmuid Uí Shúilleabháin, 2022. 1 CD.

Various (instrumental group), Tigh Choilm: Ceol na gCualáin. Cló Iar-Chonnacht, CICD210, 2023. 1 CD.

Printed Materials

Accardi, Dan. “Irish fiddling: “this thing can’t be written”: the music of Neilidh Boyle.” Fiddler magazine 30, no. 1 (2023): 39–41.

Anick, Peter. “Kevin Burke: the tar road from Sligo: traditional Irish music’s journey from farmhouse to concert hall.” Fiddler magazine 30, no. 1 (2023): 13–16.

Bushe, Paddy. “Two poems in honour of Sean Garvey.” Béaloideas: the journal of the Folklore of Ireland Society.
90 (2022): 117– 119.

Dowling, Martin. “A traditional fiddler in the modern world: exploring the music of Paddy Canny.” Review of No better boy: listening to Paddy Canny, by Helen O’Shea (Dublin: Lilliput Press, 2023). Journal of music,
11 May 2023. Online article.

The Economist. “Irish folk music is enjoying a revival.” The Economist, 3rd April 2023. Online article.

Falzett, Tiber. Review of Colm Ó Caodháin: an Irish singer and his world, by Ríonach uí Ógáin (Cork: Cork University Press, 2021). Béaloideas: the journal of the Folklore of Ireland Society.
90 (2022): 122–130.

Goan, Cathal. “Róisín Dubh: the circulation of a song.” Béaloideas: the journal of the Folklore of Ireland Society.
90 (2022): 1– 26.

Granville, Aoife. Review of The Forde Collection: Irish traditional music from William Forde manuscripts, edited by Nicholas Carolan and Caitlín Uí Éigeartaigh (Dublin: Irish Traditional Music Archive, 2021). Béaloideas: the journal of the Folklore of Ireland Society.
90 (2022): 130–132.

Groce, Nancy, and Stephen Winick. “Mick Moloney (1944–2022).” Journal of American folklore 136, no. 540 (2023): Online article.

Harkin, Treasa. “Saothar: new compositions for the tradition.” Irish Traditional Music Archive. Posted 30 April 2023. Online article.

Irish Traditional Music Archive.
“Seán Keane 1946–2023.” Irish Traditional Music Archive.
Posted 8 May 2023. Online article.

Mac Aoidh, Caoimhín. “The hidden note: the business of banshees.” Fiddler magazine 30, no. 1 (2023): 33–35.

Mangaoang, Áine. “(Be)longing: Irish musicking and place-making in Oslo, Norway” In Sonic Signatures: music, migration and the city at night ed. Derek Pardue, Ailbhe Kenny, and Katie Young. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2023. ISBN 9781789386974 (ebook).

Maye, Brian. “Taking note – Brian Maye on pioneering traditional music scholar Donal O’Sullivan.” Irish Times, 8 April 2023. Online article.

McNamara, John ‘Twin’. Oileán m’aislingí = Island of my dreams: a unique collection of 18 songs across two CDs reflecting Achill’s rich cultural heritage. [Co. Mayo]: [s.n.], 2023. 71 pp. (pbk + 2 CDs).

Mullen, Maurice. Review of Staged folklore: the National Folk Theatre of Ireland 1968–1999, edited by Susan Motherway and John O’Connell (Cork: Cork University Press, 2022). Ethnomusicology forum. (13 April 2023). Online article.

Mullen, Maurice. “Return to Fingal: the heritage and practice of Irish traditional music in North County Dublin.” MA thesis, Dundalk Institute of Technology, 2022. Online thesis.

Ní Fhuartháin, Méabh . Review of The beat cop: Chicago’s Chief O’Neill and the creation of Irish music, by Michael O’Malley (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2022). Estudios Irlandeses 18 (2023): 293-297.

Ó Cróinín, Dáibhí. Review of Collecting music in the Aran Islands: a century of history and practice, by Deirdre Ní Chonghaile (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin, 2021). Béaloideas: the journal of the Folklore of Ireland Society.
90 (2022): 136–139.

O’Donnell, Mary Louise.
“The collector as coloniser?” Review of The beat cop: Chicago’s Chief O’Neill and the creation of Irish music, by Michael O’Malley (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2022). Journal of music, 6 December 2022. Online article.

O’Keeffe, Máire. Review of
The new demesne: field recordings made by Alan Lomax in Ireland, 1951,
notes by Nicholas Carolan. (Dublin: Irish Traditional Music Archive, 2021). Béaloideas: the journal of the Folklore of Ireland Society.
90 (2022): 141–143.

O’Shea, Helen. No better boy: listening to Paddy Canny. Dublin: Lilliput Press, 2023. xi + 180 pp. ISBN 9781843518655 (pbk).

Sheehan, Jack. “The sounds of Internment: an LP of recordings smuggled out of Long Kesh turns fifty.” The Baffler, 16 August 2022. Online article.

uí Ógáin, Ríonach. Obituary of Seán Garvey. Béaloideas: the journal of the Folklore of Ireland Society.
90 (2022): 115–117.

uí Ógáin, Ríonach. Review of Port na bpucaí/The lament of the pooka. (An Daingean, Co. Chiarraí: Poncpress,
2021). Béaloideas: the journal of the Folklore of Ireland Society.
90 (2022): 147.

Acquisitions

Video recording of the Gradam Ceoil TG4 2023. Donated by TG4

Two non-commercial 78 rpm discs featuring Peter Keegan, uilleann pipes and Denis Keegan, accordion, c. 1940s. Donated by Donncha Keegan

With thanks

ITMA would also like to acknowledge donations of materials (CDs, printed items, visual items, etc.), and other help and information from the following people and organisations: Joey Abarta, John ‘Twin’ McNamara, Morrigan Books, Maurice Mullen, Mick O’Connor, Helen O’Shea, Fr John Quinn, Jackie O’Riley and Erin Ruth Thompson.

Paudie’s Blog for ITMA World Fiddle Day 2020

Since 2018 the Irish Traditional Music Archive (ITMA) has been delivering Pop-Up Archives around the country.

The objective is to bring the archive in a physical form (ITMA staff, computers, access to the database etc.) back to the epicenter of the tradition, to the places where the artefacts of Irish traditional music, song and dance were collected and later catalogued and stored at No 73, Merrion Square. The people of the area, or those attending a particular music event where the Pop-Up is stationed, get a chance to reconnect with the songs, tunes, interviews and written word contributed by their family, neighbours and friends to the archive.

One of the proposed Pop-Up Archive dates for 2020, was to be at the excellent World Fiddle Day celebrations held annually, each May in Scartaglin, Co. Kerry. ITMA kindly asked me to spend some time reviewing archive material from the Sliabh Luachra tradition, with the highlights unearthed to be presented at the opening of the World Fiddle Day Celebrations on May 16th.  For the duration of the Festival, an ITMA Pop-Up Archive would be available, so that people could search the archive with assistance from ITMA staff. The Pop-Up archive would increase the attendee’s awareness of the archive and hopefully increase their interaction with it in the future.

Undoubtedly the highlight was a series of previously unseen video recordings made during field trips to Sliabh Luachra by former RTÉ Music Producer Tony MacMahon. Tony had the novel idea of getting musicians to interview musicians. Better still, musicians who had grown up playing music together, travelling the roads of Sliabh Luachra to dance halls and pubs during the halcyon days of Pádraig O’Keeffe and his pupils.  

Among the footage was a fascinating video recording of Paddy Cronin being interviewed by accordion player Johnny O’Leary. Johnny using his own unique turn of phrase, reminded and questioned Paddy about times, musicians and characters long gone. 

Another interesting piece of video footage was legendary Sliabh Luachra musician and character Con Curtin being interviewed by the late Denis McMahon. 

Other interviews of note featured Maurice O’Keeffe, Mikey Duggan and Patcheen Connell.

Each year, I help out with the Handed Down Series of lectures in Scartaglin County Kerry which culminates with the aforementioned World Fiddle Day celebrations in May. My input usually entails giving a lecture on a topic related to Sliabh Luachra music. 

The focus of this year’s lecture was to be a tribute to my neighbour, renowned fiddler and music historian, the late Denis McMahon who passed away in 2018. This year I decided to use the ITMA to help with my preparation. With the help of the ITMA staff I was able to locate a vast store of television performances, radio performances, interviews, obituaries and tributes that appeared in different publications after his passing.  

The ITMA isn’t just a resource to be used by academics or those doing work-related research. While working on the Denis McMahon tribute I also realised what a valuable resource the ITMA can be for those of us just wishing to find out a little more about our local musical heroes.  It’s a wonderful experience to while away a few hours listening to, or reading about neighbours and friends who have been an integral part of the rich musical environment we live in. From our own perspective in Sliabh Luachra, the past twenty years have seen most of the direct links with the music of O’Keeffe pass on to their eternal reward. A few hours spent in the archive can be a wonderful way to relive and experience their music and stories.

The archive can also be a invaluable gateway to local history.  My father came from a townland four miles from the village of  Scartaglin called Ballintourigh or Baile an tSamhraidh, the town of Summer. During visits and summer holidays at my grandmothers house I had heard much about a famous dance hall that operated a few hundred yards away at the John Richard’s Cross back in the 1930’s. A quick search using the key words ‘Baile an tSamhraidh’ unearthed a journal article from the renowned Sliabh Luachra: the journal of Cumann Luachra, volume 1, no. 11 (2003). The article ‘Musical days around John Richard’s Cross‘ written by Pat Feeley* provided an insight into life in the townland from the 1930’s up to 1948 when the dance hall closed. It gave first hand accounts of the dance hall, the musicians, the adjoining all purpose shop, the coming of the motor car and subsequent demise of the rambling house. It was wonderful to read about the local characters often mentioned by my Grandmother Maggie May and Aunty Mary back in Baile an tSamhraidh, including Mary O’Sullivan pictured above.  It was Mary’s father who had initially built the dance hall.  Mary a pupil of Pádraig O’Keeffe and Tom Billy Murphy, was a character and gained notoriety for standing up to the local clergy in the aftermath of the Dance Halls Act 1935. 

Since starting my research and blog, the COVID-19 has lead to the postponement of World Fiddle Day celebrations in Scartaglin and the ITMA Pop-Up Archive.  The travel and work restrictions have seen teachers, parents and pupils have searching for online resources to keep them busy and learning. One of the primary aims of the World Fiddle Day and The Handed down Lecture Series has been to expose the next generation of musicians to the heritage of the Sliabh Luachra Music tradition. Again I feel the ITMA can be a valuable resource in this regard. 

There are wonderful Sliabh Luachra related resources currently available through the online facility www.itma.ie that pupils, parents and music teachers can use together. One resource that I’d highly recommend is the the Pádraig O’Keeffe fiddle and accordion manuscripts kindly donated to the Irish Traditional Music Archive by accordion player Paud Collins from Knockacur, Knocknagoshel, Co Kerry. The manuscripts belonged to Paud’s brother Jerh and his brother Dan (accordion), both former pupils of O’Keeffe. The manuscripts, written in O’Keeffe’s unique tablature are accompanied by an interactive music scores, making the tunes accessible to all learning styles. 

When treasured trips to Dublin for football matches, concerts and other social events do return to our lives, I strongly recommend that people consider taking a few hours to include a trip to ITMA in their itinerary. Be it listening to a few tunes from a departed neighbour or friend, reading about the life and times of a local musician or learning a few verses of a song from your locality, the experience will leave you much the richer.

Until then, tabhair aire!

And one more tune ……

I knew of Liam O’Flynn before I ever met him, of course. As a young boy in the early 1970s starting to play a few tunes on tin whistle, Mo Cheol Thú and The Long Note on RTÉ Radio 1 were very important in the weekly schedule. Mo Cheol Thú was often listened to in my parents’ bedroom, us children huddling in and Ciarán Mac Mathúna’s soft tones easing us all into a Sunday morning. I have a memory of hearing the clean, clear lines of O’Flynn’s piping on the programme – naturally, I could not have described back then the majesty of his uncluttered flow and the purity of his tone – but his piping did make some sort of impression on that young boy.

I started playing cello when I was seven or eight, and at eleven I got a practice set of pipes and duly phoned the uncle Tomás in Cork to ask where I might go for lessons. He gave me an address for Francie McPeake, “Middle Francie”, as he was known, and there I went for lessons every week for a few years. I was mad keen on pipes by now, absorbing as much as I could, listening and learning at every opportunity.

In August 1976, having competed successfully in the Ulster Fleadh the previous month, I got the chance to attend the Scoil Éigse in Buncrana, Co. Donegal and the uilleann pipe teacher was none other than my hero, Liam O’Flynn. It was a life-changing week…we all – and I remember others in the class included Máire Ní Ghráda, Marion McCarthy and Patrick Mollard – learned tunes and technique, but also in my own regard, Liam convinced me to change how I was holding the chanter with my upper hand – he indicated that as things were, there would be problems further down the road, that I was limiting myself technically. I was using the tips of the fingers on my left hand rather than the “flats” of the fingers. This trait I inherited from Francie McPeake, he in turn having picked this up from his own father who, before taking up pipes had played flute and fife, where tips of the fingers would have worked fine. I spent the best part of the next year re-educating my left hand and incorporating into my playing what I had gleaned from Liam that transformative week.

Apart from attending his concerts whenever I could, including various performances of The Brendan Voyage – and indeed one in Derry in which I was a cellist in the orchestra – the next time I saw Liam was in Dublin in 1988, in Slattery’s of Capel Street. Alongside Seán Corcoran and Dessie Wilkinson I was performing there in Cran and playing a good deal of cello as well as pipes. I remember being on stage and seeing Liam at the back of the room, that mixture of surprise, pleasure and trepidation coursing through my veins.

One afternoon a few months later, the phone rang and it was Liam on the other end, asking if we might meet up as he was thinking of starting a group and wondered if I’d be interested in joining him – he wanted to bring cello into his musical world and was keen to see where that might lead. You can imagine my sheer glee and excitement. We met up in Dundalk and agreed that we would give it a go and there began thirty years of friendship and collaboration.

Soon thereafter, Arty McGlynn and Nollaig Casey came onboard and the four of us toured occasionally together over the next few years. One of the first gigs was at a festival in France, performing to two thousand people in the grounds of a chateau. We played ‘Táimse im’ Chodladh’ that night – to be there in that setting, playing that piece, in that company – the memory still gives me goosebumps.

Liam and I continued to perform on and off during the 90s in various set-ups, occasional gigs, the odd skite into Europe, trips into studios (notably making the album The Fire Aflame in Ballyvourney in 1991) and of course some social gatherings too, with a goodly dollop of rascality and diversion thrown into the mix.

The Wheels of the World, reel; The Pinch of Snuff, reel; Micho Russell’s Reel. From: The Fire Aflame / Seán Keane; Matt Molloy; Liam O’Flynn (Claddagh Records, 1992)

The Planxty reunion in the early years of the new millennium was very important to Liam – after all, it was with that magical combination of himself, Christy, Donal and Andy that his life as a professional musician began in the early 1970s. Liam, like his father, had been a schoolteacher and it was no small gamble for him to leave that secure world behind and to head out into the great unknown. So when Planxty reformed for those few years, the sense of coming full circle was of considerable comfort and joy. Their concerts sold out everywhere, generations of adoring fans flocking in their droves to catch them. I was too young to have managed to see Planxty perform in their initial years, so getting the chance to see them live in 2002 carried with it something of history being recreated. They did a long run of gigs in Vicar Street and I remember phoning Liam as I drove into Dublin, asking him if ‘Little Musgrave’ was on the setlist – it was, and at one level, my life was now complete.

We got to co-operate at a different level in 2004 when I was commissioned to write a large-scale orchestral piece for Liam, ‘No Tongue Can Tell’, a work that opened the Belfast Festival at Queens. That marked a deepening of our relationship on both a professional and a personal level – collaborating at every stage during the composition of a substantial work specifically for him, writing to his strengths to acknowledge his music that I knew so well, but also writing in other ways to push the parameters and challenge us both. We became interdependent over the work’s creation and the trust and bond between us strengthened. A fascinating time that really was and I’m sorry we didn’t get to perform the work more often.

No Tongue Can Tell. Fourth movement. Sheltering Sound / Neil Martin, composer; Liam O’Flynn, uilleann pipes; Ulster Orchestra, instrumental music

Music finds outlets in various ways, and across 2008–9, a number of us found ourselves playing within a short enough timeframe at the funerals of some close friends and family – David Hammond, Liam’s father and Ciarán MacMathúna. We enjoyed, if one can say that, celebrating the lives of those wonderful people through music and decided that there should also be a few outings outside of funerals. We nonetheless and rather wonderfully called ourselves The Funeral Band and had a few most enjoyable gigs. In that posse were Seán Keane, Shaun Davey, Rita Connolly, Arty McGlynn, Noel Eccles, Rod McVey, Seamus Begley, Liam and myself – and Steve Cooney and Dónal Lunny sat in a few times too.

And then there was the quare trip Liam and I, inter alia, made to Romania in the summer of 2009. It was the premiere of a new work by Shaun Davey, Voices from the Merry Cemetery. The overnight train journey from Bucharest up through and over the Carpathian Mountains and almost as far as the Ukrainian border was quite something, the performances themselves unforgettable. We also laughed a great deal on that trip, the exhilaration and enjoyment of it all. But I knew that Liam was hating travel by then – it had become a necessary evil. He’d seen enough of airports and hotels.

We had a close mutual friend in Seamus Heaney, Liam and himself of course performing together over more than two decades as The Poet and The Piper. They were two men very much at ease with each other, both on and off the stage, two masters respecting and delighting in each other’s craft, two outstanding artists, volleying on a stage. Seamus’s sudden death in 2013 set the world reeling and Liam and I were to play at his funeral. I travelled the day before to Liam’s home near Athy to rehearse, and as we sat in his music room, we played music for almost an hour without speaking a single word. No words. Just music. That was enough. Liam had lost a very dear friend and a lot of the music we were rehearsing he’d played a mere ten days earlier when Seamus and himself had shared a stage in Derry. The power and emotion of music were never stronger for me than in that rehearsal and at the funeral the next day.

Not long after Seamus’s funeral, Liam was asked to bring together a group to perform a concert in the Abbey Theatre for ITMA, the essential and glorious archive of traditional music in Dublin. The other three he asked were Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, Paddy Glackin and myself, and after the pleasure of the Abbey gig, we gave some more concerts and the more we played, the more we enjoyed the whole experience. We had all inter-collaborated in different ways over many years, knew each other well and it was nothing other than a great pleasure to be sitting making fine music together. The last concert this all too short-lived quartet played was in November 2016 in Armagh, in the cathedral there. Liam was not himself backstage … he was very subdued and his weight loss was most noticeable. Paddy and I shared our anxieties and sadly within a few months, his terminal illness had been diagnosed. And shockingly, around the same time, Mícheál became gravely ill too.

Liam bravely faced into his illness in the full knowledge that there was no road back, and when I visited him at home, he talked a number of times about his childhood days and how happy they were. Liam’s father, also Liam, was from Kerry and the O’Flynn family would often head there for a summer break. Liam’s father drove a motor-bike and this was their mode of transport on those trips back west – Liam senior up front, his wife Masie riding pillion, and in the side car Liam and his siblings, Maureen and Mícheál. An essential stop on the way there was at Gleann na nGealt (The Glen of the Mad People), a magnificent and expansive glen out towards Dingle. There, Liam senior would recount the local lore and myth of the place, of the healing powers of the water and the watercress in the glen, and young Liam found this mesmerising. As Liam then in his illness recounted this to me, his eyes were dancing with happiness and delight at the memory. The very finest and happiest of days, he would say.

I wanted to write a piece of music for Liam at that time, not to write something afterwards to mark his death as such, but rather to celebrate him in life, and I felt it essential that he got to hear it. So, armed with the image of a young Liam stepping out of the side car, standing there in his short grey-flannels, agape at the beauty and power of Gleann na nGealt, I wrote ‘The Boy in the Glen’. I composed it with Paddy Glackin in mind to play it and one Sunday a few months before he died, we visited Liam and his wife Jane and Paddy played the air over a few times for Liam. Sadly, his health deteriorated sharply not long after that and I only got to see Liam again a few times before he died.

Liam died on 14th March 2018 – and Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin on 7th November. As Paddy Glackin said to me – “half our quartet died this year”

The Boy in the Glen, air / composed by Neil Martin ; West Ocean String Quartet, instrumental music

There was an aura, a forcefield to his music, the piping of Leo Rowsome, Wille Clancy and Seamus Ennis funnelled down through him and out to us. He was influenced by fiddle players and singers and flute players too, and indeed by any musician who moved him. And his passions didn’t lie solely within traditional music either – he enjoyed Bach and Haydn and Vivaldi and Elgar and a whole broad cross-section of genres.

He loved horses all his life and was a most able rider – Jane and himself kept a beautiful yard with some very fine mounts indeed. In his day, Liam was a great steady golfer to boot, a low single-handicapper at one stage. (Himself, Paddy Glackin, David Brophy and I had a most wonderful four-ball at Rosses Point in 2015 – it took us days to recover).

Liam was of a curious nature and read widely, often winnowing what he read into short quotes that he would write on cards and place in his music room, condensed reminders that would offer a way to consider certain things afresh. He took his role in life seriously – he was always prepared and he took pride in his craft.

Like gazing up into a clear starlit winter sky, Liam’s music is boundless and in hundreds of years, people will still marvel at it. There was a consistency to it all, a great hallmark of O’Flynn’s that – consistency. The steady piper, the true friend, the golfer who could shoot three or four pars in a row, the reliable collaborator … always there. After Liam died, his occasional musical partner of more than thirty years, the organist Catherine Ennis, along with Paddy Glackin and myself, played some concerts and Liam’s presence was there still, on stage every time we played, his mark indelible on all three of us. Tragically, Catherine died on Christmas Eve, 2020.

My almost whole-life encounter with Liam, stretching out now over five decades, was deeply enriching at many and various levels and it significantly helped me shape my own way of going. I learned a great deal from the man about music itself, and also about the profession of music – about life, really. We shared many great times and I believe we made some decent music. I consider myself very fortunate to have been in his orbit.

Written by: Neil Martin

Blog Editor: Grace Toland

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Michael Tubridy was born in 1935 in Kilrush, Co. Clare. He plays tin whistle, flute and concertina and is also a step dancer. He was a member of Ceoltoirí Chualann, led by Seán Ó Riada, and was a founder member of The Chieftains. He also played with the Castle Céilí Band.

As a child, one of his first musical influences would have been his mother’s brother who lived nearby and would visit every Sunday morning. There was a fiddle in the house that he would take down for his uncle to play. He had no formal lessons in his youth, but learned to pick up tunes and musical ideas from other musicians in the bands he played with.

In my interview with Michael Tubridy on the 29^th of March, he recalled going to the horse races near his home. One of the stalls had a gramophone that played the tune Off to California on a loop. When he got home that evening he went out onto the family farm with his tin whistle and tried to bring out the tune he had been listening to all day. At that time, he was not certain he would ever hear it again.

He also told me that the flute he plays was made by a man named Wylde, who had worked with Rudall and Rose in London, and dates from the 1830’s/1840s. He bought this instrument for thirty shillings when working in London and continues to use it to this day.

Michael’s style of playing is not forceful, yet it creates a strong rhythm which is maintained by the subtle use of ornamentation and articulation. He does not overpower the sweetness of the melody, and remains faithful to the pure traditional music he heard as a child.

Later in his life, he pursued an interest in Irish traditional step dance. This gave him a unique perspective on the collective unit of both the music and the dancer – each complementing and guiding one another. His wife Céline, a wonderful step-dancer, taught him the dances she had learned – both as a child in Northwest Donegal from the travelling dance masters, and later from Dan Furey and James Keane.

Firstly let’s hear from Fintan on how it all began …

Forty years ago on ‘dry’ Good Friday myself and the writer Evelyn Conlon moved into this small house in Dublin, celebrating the relocation with music and a party that was provisioned with alcohols from under the counter by the legendary Bertie McCormack’s Rathmines grocery shop. Since it was from before the age of photographic incontinence, no pictures are known to exist. These days, cameras are as numerous as flies, but in vastly greater measure is the worry and fear around what is now so terrible to think about; there is too much time to contemplate, but little that can be done in the short term other than try to stay calm.

With such distraction, commemoration of the forty-odd books and albums that have come out of the house, and of the wonderful journalists, musicians, writers and painters who have passed through it (many to eternity) is not an option, and it is hard to stay focused on one’s everyday mission.

So, my personal distraction is that while working through Irish-music tune-names for an article in the 3rd edition of Companion to Irish Traditional Music I was time-travelled back to the 1800s, conjured by those ‘handles’ into a vivid landscape of people, lives, places and the everyday. The titles from before the time of electricity grids and mass media have the most authentic stamp, and the trawl of the older Irish-music collection indexes led me into some esoteric, contemporary recontextualisation.

The names that follow are mainly from Francis O’Neill’s 1903 and 1907 Chicago, collections, some are from James Goodman, pre-Famine Munster, collected in the 1860s, as published by the ITMA in Tunes of the Munster Pipers Vols. 1 & 2. Others are from UCC’s Aloys Fleischmann’s mammoth archive (covering 1600-1855) and from Limerick dance master Francis Roche’s 1912/1927 volumes; a sprinkle are from c. 1950s-1990s.
                                                                       
                                                                            Fintan Vallely, April 2020

Essential work  The Dairymaid;  Buttermilk Mary;  The Pretty Girl Milking Her Cow;  Kitty Gone A Milkin’;  The Maid at the Churn;  The Threshers;  The Mills are Grinding;  The Cook in the Kitchen;  The Baker’s Reel;  Bruise the Pease;  The Maid at the Well;  The Irish Washerwoman;  The Wash Woman;  Jenny Picking Cockles;  The Jolly Clamdiggers;  Fishing for Eels, and, of course, The Woman of the House 

Keep active  Going to the Well for Water;  Give Us a Drink of Water;  Wallop the Potlid;  Molly Put the Kettle On;  Come to Your Dinner;  Tea in the Morning;  Boil the Breakfast Early, and, an ideal occupation for piano players,  Soda Bread Making, and (but via Skype) The Ladies’ Cup of Tea . . ….

Stock up on  Apples in Winter;  Winter Apples;  Gillan’s Apples;  The flitch of Bacon;  Jackson’s Bottle of Brandy;  The Bottle of Porter;  The Jug of Punch;  A Draught of Ale;  The Mug of Brown Ale;  The Little Bag of Meal;  Bannocks of Barley Meal;  The Three Scones of Boxty; Sweeney’s Buttermilk; The Munster Buttermilk;  Butter-Milk and Pratees;  Boiled Goat’s Milk;  The Bag of Spuds;  The New Potatoes;  Potatoes and Butter;  The Little Bag of Potatoes;  The Head of Cabbage; The Cock and the Hen;  The Leg of the Duck; Roast Beef From London;  The Bunch Of Currants;  Lumps of Pudding;  Puddings and Pies;  The Creel of perches;  The Fisherman’s Harvest;  The Basket of Oysters, and, if you a true prepper, Salt Fish and Dumplins . . .

Chains of transmission  Tabhair dom do Lámh;  Maudabawn Chapel;  The Little Grey Church;  Have a Drink With Me;  Come to the Bottle House;  Come to Dinner;  O’Rourke’s Feast;  I Went to a Chinese Restaurant;  Bímuid ag Ól is ag pógadh na mBan;  Cherish the Ladies;  Will You Come Home With Me?;  Up against the Boughalauns;  Come Under My Plaiddie;  Come With Me Now;  Behind the Bush in the Garden;  Rolling on the Ryegrass;  Kiss the Maid Behind the Barrel;  Kiss Your Partner;  The Highland Man who Kissed his Grannie;  Dancing on the Green;  Swinging Around the Circle;  Round the House and Mind the Dresser;  All Hands Around;  The Waves of Torey;  The Walls of Limerick; Out With the Boys;  A Night at the Fair, and, regrettably,  Finnegan’s Wake . . .

Prohibited travel  A Trip to the Cottage;  Over the Moor to Maggie;  Over the Bridge to Peggy;  Fr Grady’s Visit to Bockagh;  Rick’s Rambles;  The Gravel Walks; Around the World For Sport;  Kitty Come Down to Limerick;  Round the world for sport;  The Connachtman’s Rambles;  Going to the Fair;  A Trip to Galway;  A Night at the Fair;  A Trip to Athlone;  Follow me down to Carlow;  Follow Her Over the Border;  Return to Camden Town;  Off to California, and, unless you’re a medic,  A Visit to Ireland . . .

Cancelled events  The Merry Days of Easter;  Easter Sunday;  The Sporting Days of Easter;  The Maid Behind the Bar;  Out on the Ocean;  The Rathkeale Hunt;  The Boyne Hunt;  The Races at Carrick;  The Castlebar Races;  The Mullingar Races;  The Curragh Races;  The Piper’s Picnic;  Donnybrook Fair;  Killarney Fair;  Lanigan’s Ball;  The Dances at Kinvara;  The Trip to Birmingham;  The Trip to Durrow, and, mercifully, at least for a while,  The Day We Paid the Rent . . .

Social distancing  Stay away from: A Stranger From Limerick;  The Cow That Ate the Blanket;  The Green Fields of America;  The Banks of the Nile;  The Boys From the East;  The Rakes of Kildare;  The Rakes of Clonmel;  The Rakes of Mallow;  The Highway to Limerick;  Kitty’s Wedding;  The Rambler From Clare;  The Sporting Bachelor;  The Roving Bachelor;  The Rambling Sailor;  The Ranting Rake;  Rakish Paddy;  The Dandies Gone a Roaming;  The Killarney Boys of Pleasure;  The Back of the Haggard;  Roarin’ Mary;  Johnny With the Queer Thing;  The Coughing Old Man, and, sadly for tourism, Our Own Little Isle . . .

Permitted activities The Cup of Tea; Cheese It!;  Kiss Your Partner;  Kiss Me Sweetheart;  Courting in the Kitchen;  Come Upstairs With Me;  Take Her Out and Air Her;  Within a Mile of Clonbur, but, considering everything, don’t go Within a Mile of Dublin . . .

Contact tracing  Last Night’s Fun;  Kissing and Drinking;  The Friendly Visit;  Happy to Meet Sorry to Part;  Take a Kiss or Let it Alone;  The Unfortunate Cup of Tea;  Coming From the Wedding;  Molly What Ails You?;  What Ails You?;  Peggy is Your Head Sick?  And, what the medics need to know, such as “I Met Her In The Garden Where the Praties Grow” . . .

Contagion reporting  Tell Her I Am;  Go home go home dear cousin;  An Ugly Customer;  The Expensive Sneeze;  Take Your Hand Away;  Cuz’s Concoctions for the Throat;  When Sick is it Tea You Want?;  Is it the Priest You Want?; The Pretty Girl in Danger;  A Short Way to Heaven;  What the Devil Ails You?;  The Perfect Cure, and if you think you’ve identified the culprit,  resist shouting “You Thief who Stole my Health From Me” . . .

Isolation  Farewell to Liberty;  Lock the Door;  The Lonesome Jig;  Splendid Isolation;  The Lonely Fireside;  Take It Easy;  The Pleasures of Home;  Our House At Home;  Tá Mé ‘mo Chodhladh ’s Ná Dúisigh mé;  Snug in the Blanket;  Advice to the Soupers;  Banish Misfortune;  We’ll Drink Good Health, and, there being nothing else for it,  Erin’s Hope . . .

Consequences  The Pleasures of Hope;  The Lonesome Wedding;  My Love is in America;  My Love is on the Ocean;  Pay the Reckoning;  Níl Aon Airgead Agam;  The Little Pig Lamenting the Empty Trough;  The Smiles and Tears of Erin;  The Parting Glass, and, if you’re post-seventy and thinking about going for a walk disguised as a teenager, remember the words of Lone Shanakyle

Fintan Vallely, © 10th April 2020

With sincere thanks to Fintan Vallely for permission to reproduce this piece from his website https://imusic.ie/

May 2020

Emer Ní Scolaí is ainm dom. Táim i mo chónaí i nDrom Chonrach i mBaile Átha Cliath. Táim ag seinnt an chruit ó bhí mé seacht mbliana d’aois. I love playing all genres of music on the harp but traditional harping is my favourite and the most fun to play. 

Music has always been in my family and my grandad the flute player and singer, Séamas Mac Mathúna and my grandmother Úna always encouraged me to play as often as possible and immerse myself in the music world. They had a big impact on my understanding of Irish traditional music and its legacy. My grandmother always had a keen interest in old Irish harping and the wire-strung harp and her interest rubbed off on me which is a big reason I wanted to play the harp. 

I’ve had a number of teachers over the years who’ve helped me to grow and mature in my playing. I’m currently being taught trad by Gráinne Hambly and classical by Áine Ní Dhubhghaill in the Academy of Music and I’m very grateful to Ciara O Grady, Emer Toale and Aoife Ní Argáin for all their help over the years as well as those that have helped me at the various summer and winter schools. 

Among others, my dad loves Laoise Kelly’s harping and when I was starting the harp he would take me and my sisters to any concerts she had in Dublin and buy me a few of her albums that I listened to on repeat. When I was eight I went to Scoil Acla, a music summer school on Achill Island and I was so happy that she was teaching. Since those many years I spent at Achill she’s taught me a number of great tunes at different music festivals and is the player I most admire along with my teachers. I also attended the first Achill International Harp Festival and listened to the amazing  playing of wire strung harpist Paul Dooley, Scottish harpist Mary Macmaster and Gráinne Hambly from Mayo. Every year I attend An Chúirt Chruitireachta Annual International Harp Festival in An Grianán, Termonfechin, Co. Louth where I get to hear wonderful harpists including Cormac de Barra, Anne-Marie O’Farrell, Tríona Marshall and Kim Fleming. 

When I started the harp I played on an Ó Meachair made by the late Colm Ó Meachair in his Marley Park workshop in Dublin. It’s a really lovely harp that I still play regularly. I currently play a Fisher harp made from quilted maple wood in Canada by Larry Fisher. Larry is renowned and an excellent harp maker and I love his harps more every time I play them.  

I had a great, innovative week at ITMA. The staff were so helpful and friendly and they really made me feel at home. I did work from cataloguing recordings of trad concerts to sorting out ephemera. 

I was very happy that I could access ITMA’s resources freely from a musician’s perspective as well as a TY student. I found many books by harpers like Carolan and old recordings of Derek Bell and other harpers in the library and on their computers. Two of my sisters that I play in a trad band with, play concertina and uileann pipes and, being so immersed in those instruments, I loved seeing that there was resources for them too.  

My favourite part of the work I did at ITMA was studying and learning pieces from the Grier manuscripts. It was a collection of works that I had never encountered before, and having a great interest in music and collecting music I was hooked from the first tune. 

In the middle of the week I started to pick out several tunes from the Grier manuscript I liked the sound of, learn them and adapt them to the harp and my style of playing. The useful audio file on each tune was a great learning tool and it helped me to learn each tune faster. At the end of the week I was asked to pick out one of the tunes I learned and tried to arrange in that short time, and record it for their website. I think having a recording of someone playing an uncommon tune up online really shows people that rare tunes can be played and revivified years after they’re collected. The tune I played was called Tony Adair and I enjoyed it because of its flow and how easy it was to interpret and make your own. I also prefer minor tunes to major which is another reason I chose to play Tony Adair.  

Bhain mé an-taithneamh go deo as an seachtain a chaith mé ag an ITMA.

Emer Ní Scolaí, March 2020

Fiddle player Paddy Glackin is from Dublin. His father, Tom, was from County Donegal and was a noted fiddler who had a significant influence on Paddy’s style. Paddy has also been inspired by John Doherty, the Donegal travelling fiddle player and by others such as  John Kelly, Tommy Potts and Pádraig O’Keeffe. Paddy was senior all-Ireland champion fiddle player at Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann at age nineteen. He was a member of the traditional music group ‘Seachtar’ and then of ‘The Bothy Band’ in the 1970s. He was also a member of ‘Ceoltóirí Laighean’ recording two albums with them.  Having spent some time as Traditional Music Officer with the Arts Council he moved to broadcasting with RTÉ.  Although his preference is for solo playing he has joined forces with numerous musicians such as Paddy Keenan, Dónal Lunny, Robbie Hannan and Mícheál Ó Domhnaill, he has also recorded with John Cage and Jolyon Jackson. Paddy co-presents ‘Dúchas an Cheoil: The Scope of Irish Music’ at the annual Willie Clancy Summer School. His first  solo album ‘Glackin: Ceol ar an bhFidil’  was released in 1977. He was the recipient of the TG4 Gradam Ceoil Musician of the Year award for 2022. 

Neansaí Ní Choisdealbha is from Cor na Rón, Cois Fharraige, County Galway. She began learning music at home where her father Michael Mheáirt Ó Coisdealbha played the accordion and her mother Bairbre was a set dancer and played the Jew’s Harp. Neansaí started off playing the accordion and then began to learn to play the tin whistle. Later, she began to learn the flute. She started working with Raidió na Gaeltachta in 1986. Initially  she worked in the area of sound recording and was then technical manager of the project which saw the digitisation of the entire Raidió na Gaeltachta archive. Neansaí began work as programme manager and as Head of Music. She then began to travel around Ireland collecting and recording music. She presents four weekly music programmes. Her programme ‘Ceol Binn ó na Beanna’ is regarded as the station’s  flagship programme of traditional music and Neansaí has a special talent in presenting the best of music. She has recorded two albums Draíocht na Feadóige and An Tower. In 2014 Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann made an award in recognition of her pioneering work and she has also received recognition from the Celtic Media Festival.  

My name is Catriona Gribben, I am 21 years old and come from Gaoth Dobhair in County Donegal. As a final year BA Hons Music & Audio Production student at Queen’s University Belfast, I had the opportunity to undertake a part-time placement as one of my modules.

I was looking for somewhere I could use my skills in both music and audio, as well as my other passion, the Irish language. A fellow Donegal musician suggested ITMA and I knew it would be the perfect match. Not only would it offer me the ideal opportunity to be immersed in Irish music and song, but the fact there is a Recording Studio in the building meant that I would be able to put some of the audio production skills I had been learning into action. Keen to make contact with ITMA, I sent my CV and was thrilled to be invited to Dublin to discuss projects and areas of work that would be suitable for me as an intern. This visit was invaluable as it allowed both parties to prepare a structure for the internship which would be mutually beneficial. I was motivated to make the most of my experience at the ITMA but at the same time offer something concrete and worthwhile in return.

Since a very young age, I have always been passionate about Irish traditional music and its preservation. I was delighted and inspired to be in 73 Merrion Square which is such a treasure trove of Irish heritage. My weekly visits reminded me of my rural Donegal roots. I have always felt privileged to have been brought up in a place steeped in Irish culture, music and heritage where the Irish language is so vibrant. I feel particularly grateful to have been raised in Gaoth Dobhair because, although neither of my parents are originally from there, it has hugely influenced the person I am today. I know that my upbringing there gave me opportunities and gifts that I would not have gained elsewhere, like my fluency in the Irish language and my love of traditional music.

As a young child, I attended singing and tin whistle lessons in An Chrannóg and went to the summer camps all through the medium of Gaeilge. Although many people initially got involved because their school friends were going, I was enamored from the start and knew it was where I wanted to be. 

The classes were, and remain, very popular and most young people locally can say that they went along to these lessons at some point in their childhood. In retrospect, we just accepted it as part of our childhood without thinking about what we were singing or playing, how rare the airs we were singing were, or how important it was that we were learning them. Most of the time the songs were learned phonetically by ear, and it was only later as we grew up that we realised what the lyrics were actually about. 

Learning other instruments came naturally to those of us who persevered with the singing and tin whistle lessons. I tried out most of the instruments for a term or two and decided somewhere along the way that I would focus on the piano accordion. In 2008, after long hours of practise and years of being told ‘na bí ag labhairt i mBéarla!’, a group of young musicians, under the direction of Caitlín Joe Jack, emerged called An Crann Óg. Ever since, we have been collaborating, performing and touring together across Ireland, Scotland, Germany and even the Catskills in New York state. Our ongoing role as a group is to promote and encourage the Irish singing tradition as well as to entertain.

The Gráinne Yeats Collection at ITMA

One of the first projects I worked on in the Archive was the Gráinne Yeats Collection. Gráinne Yeats (1925-2013) was a harpist, singer and researcher from Dublin. The material in this collection was donated to ITMA by the Yeats Family. 

My first task was to sort through and broadly sort the published books and journals in the collection into English language, Irish language/other Celtic languages. After this, I began checking the ITMA online catalogue to see if any of these titles were already in ITMA. I created metadata for the new material and isolated the copies.

Field Recording Experience at ITMA

I was also given the opportunity to do some filming and improve my Adobe Premiere Pro film editing skills. Brian Doyle and Alan Woods invited me to join them on a couple of ITMA field recording trips. The first outing was in October 2019 to the Glenties Fiddle Weekend. This was a brilliant night for Donegal fiddle music and I was able to film performers like Roisin and Ella McGrory from Culdaff on the Inishowen Peninsula. I also assisted Alan Woods with the filming of two fantastic gigs in the Amharclann Ghaoth Dobhair over the course of the Scoil Gheimhridh festival in December 2019. These were performances by FIDIL and Julie Fowlis. 

The Brían Ó Domhnaill Collection at ITMA

A few weeks after commencing my work placement in the Archive, a very interesting project arose which I knew would undoubtedly become very important to me. 

This project was ‘The Brían Ó Domhnaill Collection’ – AKA ‘Brían Danny Minnie Collection’.

Brían, hailing from Anagaire, Co. Donegal, has always been a huge part of the local music scene in west Donegal. Our group has played many sessions with him in his family restaurant, ‘Danny Minnie’s’ and he is well known for his vast repertoire of songs. An important factor of song tradition is understanding the ‘where and when’ of a song. This is where Brían shows his knowledge, as he is teeming with information and stories about all his songs.

Brían has gathered this information together in four large folders, with 500 + songs arranged alphabetically by song title. As a pilot project he left the first folder with ITMA to investigate how the information he collated could be documented and made available to other users. 

My work began on the Brían Ó Domhnaill Collection before Christmas 2019. I set up a spreadsheet and entered all the song titles that appear in the first song folder. I identified the photocopied book and CD sources he had been using by searching in the ITMA collection and then asking Brían about any obscure articles or books that were not found in ITMA. After this, I began the process of scanning all the original manuscripts and typescripts that were included in the folder.

Sometimes the song was the version from a specific singer at a session or often it was a song that he had jotted down from memory. Like many singers, he added additional verses to songs. There are many instances within this folder where Brían creates new versions of songs by manually cutting and pasting verses from different songs with similar themes. I later found out that he did this in order to make a song longer for competitions and even just for his own amusement.

When I began to go to events like Oireachtas na Gaeilge, I would watch people going up, singing short enough songs, they might only have had a couple of verses! They would be in competition with people from Connemara and people from other areas who would have eight or nine verses to their songs, and I would say to myself, well where did the verses go? 

Other times, maybe you’d find a verse from somewhere else at home and you’d add it in. I remember there was a time at the Oireachtas when competitors sang six songs, they were advised to only sing four verses of each song. So, for example when Annie Eoghain Eamainn and them competed, they would only sing four verses. For this reason, songs became shorter and I would say, the verses were lost.
I wanted to put extra verses to songs to bulk them up. I found different versions of the same songs and picked out verses that I could add, but some verses that I found were in different songs with similar themes. 

So, there’s lots of interesting things going on in the extra verses.

Brían Ó Domhnaill interview 2020, translation by Catriona Gribben

Bádaí na Scadán

In the folder, there was one sleeve that particularly interested me. This was the collective research on the song Bádaí na Scadán. 

There were snippets from articles and what seemed to be a thesis. Brían had even printed off old emails from 2004! Who was Nuala from IT? I was confused to say the least. Up to this point it had been a fairly standard procedure of scanning song lyrics/manuscript or typescript. I was intrigued by the material and felt I had to put the puzzle pieces together.

After some investigations on my part, I discovered he had gathered information from Irish Times journalist, the late Nuala O’Faolain; The Donegal Annual 2000, and Lillis Ó Laoire. I felt like a detective, but what I eventually found was a remarkable story and a heart wrenching tragedy. 

The Inishfree Letters, were a series of letters found in an attic in America in 1981. They were addressed to a Miss Elizabeth Mc Connell, wife of Mr John Dugeon from Ranafast who emigrated to America in the 1820s. The letters were dated 1822-1828 so were over 150 years old when they were discovered.

In one of the letters, Alex Mc Connell writes to his sister, Elizabeth, bearing the awful news of a drowning that happened on New Year’s Eve 1821 on Trágh Éanna. The song tells the story of five young boys who set out on a fishing trip. After a tremendous wave hits their boat, all but one of them is drowned. In the song, Billy Duffy, the boy who managed to stay above water cries out for help. All the bodies were recovered apart from one, a young boy called Fergal. There is a very poignant line that goes;

 A Fheargail a dheartháir má tá tú I bhFlaitheas na Naomh, Iarr fortacht ar an Ard Rí do bhfáil in san chladagh seo thíos

Brother Fergal, if you are in heaven, please ask the High King to find you on this shore

This tragedy gave us the song, Bádaí na Scadán, a song from Ranafast which was first associated with Máire Ní Dhubhtaigh.

I then learned and recorded the song myself in the ITMA Studio.

After working with the songs in the folder for a few weeks, I had numerous questions that I wanted to ask Brían himself, so we arranged for him to come to ITMA for an interview at the end of January 2020.

In the wide-ranging interview, Brían gave great insights into song-collecting. He discusses how and why he started the project, and what the future of the project might look like. Ideally, all the songs would be recorded and made available online. With over 500 hundred songs in the four folders a solution would be to prioritise ‘at-risk’ songs. Brían is genuinely afraid that once his time on earth has passed, these unique old songs will also disappear forever. 

When asked to sing a song at the end of my interview with him, Brían chose a few verses of ‘Tom Glas Coilleadh’ heard from an old woman from Mín Doire na Slua named Cití Mhary Thaidhg. 

In my opinion, Brían Ó Domhnaill’s Collection is of great historical and cultural significance and must be preserved and cherished. Although my time here in ITMA has come to an end, I would like to continue working on this project in the future. This pilot project has been invaluable in setting out the value of such a project but also the time and investment it will take. 

My period of work experience at the ITMA has been of great benefit to me on both a professional and personal level. I have developed many new and important skills such as archiving, recording, interviewing and researching. Furthermore, I believe that as a person I have become more resourceful, driven and confident in my own work which will hopefully improve my employ-ability in the future. 

I owe a debt of gratitude to the staff who work at the ITMA. They were always welcoming and ready to help me achieve my goals. I have felt inspired by their genuine interest and involvement in the work they do to preserve and archive our unique traditional music heritage. 

I would like to thank Brían Ó Domhnaill for coming to ITMA and sharing his in-depth knowledge of the song collection.

I would also like to give a special thanks to Grace Toland, Brian Doyle, Alan Woods and ALL the staff at ITMA, for kindly welcoming me and always providing help in any way that they could, so that I could make the very most of my work placement. 

I would like to thank the Director Liam O’Connor for facilitating this placement in the Archive.

This blog was researched and written by Catriona Gribben.

It was presented by Grace Toland.

May 2020

The Rolling Wave radio programme on RTÉ is presented and produced by fiddle player, Aoife Nic Cormaic. During the initial lockdown of 2020 the programme, in association with ITMA, commissioned 10 composers to write new tunes in a project called Faoiseamh. Initially the composers recorded the tunes on whatever devices they had in their homes, and these, along with interviews were broadcast in June and July of 2020. A further round of compostitions were commissioned in November 2021 and broadcast that December.

As part of the series the tunes were published on the ITMA website with a full suite of learning resources.

The tunes in this collection, along with interviews with the composers, were featured on two editions of The Rolling Wave radio programme. The first was broadcast on the 5 December 2021, and the second on the 12 December 2021.

The Rolling Wave is presented and produced by Aoife Nic Cormaic.

A series of compositions written by Barry Kerr and inspiried by the Liam O’Flynn collection in the Irish Traditional Music Archive. For more information about the tunes and Barry’s inspiration behind them, please read the accompanying blog.>

Darren Loughran is a guitarist and is studying for an MA in Musicology and Performance in Maynooth University. He has researched and presented these tunes, and a guest blog as part of his coursework.>

When composing, you are always on a quest to find that elusive motif or melodic idea which will entice you to complete the tune. The beauty of this artform is that you have so many avenues to explore, and you can sometimes surprise yourself along the way. Two of my CDs Irish Music on the Clavichord 2015 and Irish Music on the Harpsichord 2018 were a case in point.
Both albums with funding from the Arts Council, were inspired by early harp music. These two albums featured eleven of my own compositions, in this ancient harping style. Even though I did not set out to record so many of my own compositions, the pieces evolved out of a love for each respective instrument and the associated repertoire.
Three compositions here are transcribed with a left-hand part suitable for harp or piano. In practice, I prefer sparse accompaniment that is almost part of the overall melodic texture, enhancing the melodic line, never dominating harmonically.

I also enjoy writing standard jigs and reels etc, but there are so many beautiful melodies already in existence, that this can seem futile; unless they are played and accepted by other musicians.

I recorded the hornpipe Tom’s Delight for the CD with John Weir and Eithne Ni Dhonaile and my recent recording with my sister Breda features two newly composed jigs. Composing for SATB choir is another passion of mine but that’s another story.

I hope you enjoy this selection of tunes.

Claire Keville, March 2023

Compositions

1. Tom’s Delight [comp. Claire Keville], hornpipe
2. Rain on the Roof [comp. Claire Keville], jig
3. The Little Flower [comp. Claire Keville], jig
4. Lament of Loss [comp. Claire Keville], air
5. The Friary Bell [comp. Claire Keville], harp piece
6. The Bell Tower [comp. Claire Keville], harp piece
7. The Silent Black River [comp. Claire Keville], harp piece

The recording ‘Oileán m’Aislingí (Island of my Dreams) is a compilation of eighteen songs, ten in Irish and eight in English. It includes a mix of old Achill songs, John ‘Twin’ McNamara’s own compositions, old Achill poems to which he has composed the music and some of his other favourites. All the songs, apart from ‘Teanga Bhinn ár Máthar’, were recorded between his 84th and 86th birthdays.

Reproduced here are a selection of songs from the album. These are the songs for which John composed the airs.

• Oileáin m’aislingí, song
• Nóra dheas na gcraoch-fholt ní bháidhidh, song
  The islands of Ireland, song
  Coire dubh linn, song
  The first and last trains to Achill, song
  Séideadh na hadhairce, song
  Anach, song
  Teanga bhinn ár máthar, song

Notes on the songs

Oileán m’Aislingí, song [words: Percy French ; translation: John McNamara ; music: John McNamara]

0ileán m’Aislingí is an Irish translation of a Percy French poem ‘In Exile’ written circa 1903. Percy French spent time in Achill between 1900-1910 and did several paintings of Achill and stayed in the Slievemore Hotel. The poem was written in London and describes him dreaming of being back in Achill the “Island of his Dreams”. This was translated to Irish in 2019 and as far as we are aware, it is the first translation to Irish of a Percy French poem.

Song words

Nóra dheas na gcraoch-fholt Ní Bháidhidh, song [words: Padraig Daeid ; music: John McNamara]

This poem was written by the Achill/Erris poet Padraig at the beginning of the 20th Century. Daeid was the known as an ‘Táiliúir Gorm’ and he wrote this poem in praise of a woman named Nóra who gave a meal to him one day he was going to the fair. This is one of John Twin’s favourite poems and it reminds him of his sister Nóra who died at a young age.

Song words

The Islands of Ireland, song [words and music: John McNamara]

This song was written in 1984 about Achill and the Islands of Ireland. The air was inspired by the gift of a fife from the 1882 fife and drum band to John ‘Twin’ by Martin Joe McNamara. The fife had been played by Martin’s brother Sonny.

While John ‘Twin’ was trying out the fife the air to this song came to him. At the time he was looking over across the river from his home at the ‘Joe’ brothers walking up their land to harvest the crops.

Song words

This song was also recorded on the album in Irish

Coire Dubh Linn, song [words: Darrell Figgis ; music: John McNamara]

Corie Dubh Linn is one of Darrell Figgis’ poems from his book of poetry called the ‘The Mount of Transfiguration’ which was written during his time in Achill, 1914-1916.

Corie Dubh Linn is a beautiful lake at the back of Croaghaun Mountain. In 1914 Figgis took part in a production of Douglas Hyde’s ‘Casadh an tSugáin’ in Achill, directed by the artist Paul Henry, who also made Achill his home. Incidentally, John Twin’s grandfather Johnny Tom Owen McNamara named one of Henry’s paintings ‘The Lake of the Tears of the Sorrowing Women’
Figgis was a prominent member of the first Dail and he chaired the committee that drew up the State’s first Constitution.

Song words

The first and last trains to Achill, song [words: William O’Malley (First train) ; John McNamara (Last train) ; music: John McNamara]

This recording combines two songs. The first part is a poem which recollects the Clew Bay drowning disaster which took place in 1894, when a boat carrying migrant workers from Achill to Scotland capsized in Clew Bay with the loss of 32 lives. The bodies of the dead were transported on the first steam train to Achill.

The second part of the song was written by John ‘Twin’ McNamara and recollects the Kirkintilloch bothy fire disaster of 1937 in which ten young Achill Island boys, who were working as migrant workers, lost their lives. Their bodies were transported to Achill by train from Dublin. This fulfilled Brian Rua Ó Cearbháin ‘s prophecy that the first and last trains to Achill would carry bodies of the dead.

Song words

Séideadh na hAdhairce, song [words and music: John McNamara]

This song ‘Seideadh no hAdhairce’ (Blowing of the Horn) describes the old tradition of gathering seaweed from the shore to fertilize the crops which took place in Achill in late 1800’s. Traditionally a May storm known as ‘Garbh Shíon no gCuach’ or ‘The Cuckoo Storm’ would release the seaweed from the bottom of the ocean, and it would come ashore on the tide.

In Dooagh and in other parts of Achill, people were appointed as ‘herds’ to notify people when the wrack came ashore by blowing horns. The original herds in Dooagh were Pat Callaghan and Anthony Kilcoyne and the task was handed down from generation to generation. Pat blew the wrack horn for the Leic side of the beach and Anthony for the Bruach Dubh side.

Lots were cast for the seaweed, and everybody got an equal share. The items used for casting lots were the Root (of the seaweed}, the Fruit (of the seaweed}, the Pebble, and the Bruach (clod of turf from Bruach Dubh). People who did not have a stake were only entitled to the seaweed from a part of the beach known as the Pauper’s Divide. The original horns used are still in Dooagh.

Song words

Anach, song [words: Darrell Figgis, music: John McNamara]

Darrell Figgis came to Achill circa 1913 and was responsible for setting up Oglaigh na hEireann in the area together with An Paorach. They appointed John Twin’s father Anthony as their first captain in Achill. Figgis wrote numerous poems about Achill, one of which is named Anach, a secluded beauty spot on the island. Local folklore has it that he was planning that Anach would be used as a landing place for arms. He was arrested in Achill in 1916 for his involvement in The Rising.

There is an old ruin of a building in Anach called the ‘Scotch House’ which was used by the fishermen employed by Alexander Hector, who owned fishery rights on Achill at the time.

Four of the fishermen are named in this short rhyme:
‘Tommy White the foreman, Cassidy the Cook, McNamara was the stoker and Mickey Eamon drawing bruachs’

There is a carving on a stone in the Scotch house “TW 1879” which indicates the time period.

Song words

Teanga Bhinn ár Máthar, song [words: Séamus Ó Maoilfhia, music: John McNamara]

This poem was the winning entry at the Feis Cheoil in 1903 and was published in An Claidheamh Solais that year. It is a motivational song for the Irish language. John put music to the song in 2008 and added a verse about Achill. It was recorded along with the teachers of Scoil Ada during the Summer school of 2008. The first public performance was at the Scoil Acla Gala Concert of that year in which he dedicated the song to his first grandchild Seán and to his son Seán who passed away in 1995. The song was subsequently recorded in Scots Gaelic by the great Scottish folk singer Kathleen MacInnes

Song words

On Sunday 17 October 2021 a memorial service was held in the Unitarian Church on St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin. This was to remember and celebrate the life and music of accordion player Tony Mac Mahon, who passed away the previous week. The service was attended by family, friends, President Micheal D. Higgns and many from the traditional music community. The event was live-streamed and recorded by ITMA and can be watched here.

Photographer Colm Keating was asked by ITMA to take photographs at the service, and at the gathering afterwards in The Teacher’s Club, Parnell Square. The selection below are just a sample of the photographs he took on the day. The are many more available in the ITMA collections.

With thanks to Colm Keating for his permission to reproduce these images online.

Peter Laban has been beavering away in Co. Clare over the past few months as ITMA’s inaugural photographer-in-residence. He has been preparing images for donation to ITMA, and in the first of three galleries we give you a preview of this wonderful addition to our Images Collection.

Peter describes these images as a “random selection” but he did pick out two particular images in a nod to recent pandemic times.

The final two images were picked on purpose. Tony Linnane and Danny Mahoney were the last concert before the lockdowns. Covid was looming and nobody knew what to expect, things were just new and uncertain. … Sorcha bookends the lockdowns nicely, emerging happily from that phase.

On March 15 2022 ITMA held a concert in the National Concert Hall to honour the memory of Liam O’Flynn.

The concert was curated by Liam O’Connor and Seán Potts. It featured artists that had performed with Liam, music that he had composed and music that was associated with him. It also featured artists that had been inspired by his work and, in particular, by his papers that were donated to ITMA by his widow, Jane O’Flynn, after his death in 2020.

The line-up included Louise Mulcahy, Colm Broderick and Pádraic Mac Mathúna, who each played a set of pipes that had once belonged to Liam himself. Liam left these pipes to Na Piobairí Uilleann who in turn entrusted these three performers with their care.

The evening was MC’ed by actor Stephen Rae, who read snippets from the Liam O’Flynn Collection, including some poetry written for Liam by his friend Seamus Heaney.

The programme from the event is available free with any purchase in the ITMA shop, while stocks last.