Originally from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Rik Walton has spent a lifetime photographing music and theatre all over the world. In the early 2010s he lived in South-West Donegal and recorded the music he found in that community with his camera. The selection of images presented here are of Donegal fiddler’s performances at the Glencolmcille Folk Village. For more information on Rik and his images see https://www.rikwalton.com

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.

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

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

Heritage Council Funding 2021

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

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

Heritage Council Funding 2021

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

The images presented in this gallery illustrate the collecting work of Sidney Roberston Cowell on the Aran Islands in the 1950s, and the wider context in which she collected. More information on this topic, and on these images, can be found in the accompanying blog:
Sidney Robertson Cowell records in the Aran Islands and Conamara, 1955-56

Tony Kearns, Nutan, Colm Keating and Peter Laban have each spent many years taking photographs at the festival and are regular visitors to Miltown Malbay. As part of ITMA’s contribution to the virtual Willie Clancy Summer School for 2020 we published a selection of images from their collections. Also included in this gallery are images from Danny Diamond, Orla Henihan, Liam McNulty and Mal Whyte.

As ITMA’s Photographer-in-Residence 2022 Christy McNamara was invited backstage in the National Concert Hall for the Drawing from the Well: Liam O’Flynn Collection Concert on the 15th March 2022.
The images from the gallery show the performers rehearsing and preparing for their on-stage performance.

For more images of the performers on stage see Des Gallagher’s Gallery from the same night.

More information on Christy McNamara can be found on his own website.

The William Kennedy International Piping Festival has been held annually in Armagh city and district since 1994. Founded by Brian & Eithne Vallely of the Armagh Pipers Club, which has been teaching and publishing traditional music widely in Armagh since 1966, the festival is named after William Kennedy (1768–1834), a blind musician, uilleann-pipe maker and inventor who died in Co Armagh. While the uilleann pipes are the focus of the Armagh Pipers Club, the festival itself celebrates the wide diversity of mouth-blown and bellows-blown pipes and bagpipes that are played across Europe and further afield, and it brings together pipers (and other musicians) from different countries and different piping traditions. Recitals, concerts, workshops, lectures, exhibitions, and impromptu sessions of piping are at the heart of the William Kennedy Festival.

Dutch designer and photographer Paul Eliasberg began learning the uilleann pipes in the 1990s, and spent some months in Ireland learning from the Dublin piper Néillidh Mulligan. With his singer wife Thirza, he settled in Armagh in 2003, where their family has been born. From 2004 to date he has been documenting the William Kennedy Festival with his camera, and has kindly donated copies of photographs in his copyright to the Irish Traditional Music Archive for public access. The selection presented here covers a wide range of north and east European pipes, and pipes from the Mediterranean countries, as played at the festival.

PS ITMA has been making audio and video field-recordings at the WKPF since its early years and these recordings are available for reference listening and viewing in its premises. In 2003 a selection of these audio recordings (made for ITMA by Glenn Cumiskey) was published by the Armagh Pipers Club on the CD Live Recordings from the William Kennedy Piping Festival. For further information visit the website here.

With thanks to Paul Eliasberg, the subjects of his photographs, and the William Kennedy International Piping Festival. ITMA always welcomes such donations or the opportunity to copy such materials.

Nicholas Carolan, 1 June 2010

Since the 19th century, Irish postcards have carried representations of Irish social life and symbols of national identity, and this process increased with the rise of national feeling in the early 20th century. Symbols of identity have frequently been musical. The national instrument of the harp, in various forms, has been particularly prominent. Also to the fore have been the uilleann pipes (the Irish form of bellows-blown bagpipes) and traditional dance.

The Irish Traditional Music Archive accordingly collects Irish musical postcards (which are normally undated) of all periods as representing aspects of Irish traditional music. It presents here a selection of these cards.

With thanks to postcard donors the Breathnach Family and Matt Murtagh. ITMA always welcomes such donations or the opportunity to copy such materials.

Nicholas Carolan, 1 October 2008