Christy Mc Namara grew up in a musical family in Crusheen, County Clare. He plays accordion and concertina and is a specialist in black and white photography. 

His debut recording ‘ The House I was Reared In‘  was released in (2007). This year sees the release of a new recording of his original compositions ‘The Year of the Blizzard‘. Christy has been part of the session scene over many years and a regular performer at festivals including Scoil Samhradh Willy Clancy and The Feakle Festival.

He was a soloist with live score and orchestra for the screening of the film ‘Barry Lyndon‘ (Stanley Kubrick) at The Kings Theater Brooklyn, New York City in 2017.

His photography of traditional music is featured in his book ‘The Living Note‘ (O Brien Press 1996) with author Peter Woods, it received wide acclaim.

His work has been exhibited extensively at home and abroad over the last three decades and is held in both public and private collections worldwide. He was photographer in Residence at ITMA for 2022.

He is featured in the film documentary  ‘The Job of Songs‘ on traditional music in County Clare.

In 2023 he was invited to do an an exhibition of his photographic work on traditional music and to perform at Masters of Tradition festival in Bantry, Co.Cork

Compositions

1. Another bride for Kevin [comp. Christy McNamara], reel
2. Bóthar na cearta [comp. Christy McNamara], reel
3. McMahon’s of Cappafean [comp. Christy McNamara], jig
4. Night watching [comp. Christy McNamara], reel
5. One for the captain [comp. Christy McNamara], reel
6. Paddy’s haggard [comp. Christy McNamara], jig
7. The day old chicks [comp. Christy McNamara], march
8. The house at the bridge [comp. Christy McNamara], reel
9. The house under the hill [comp. Christy McNamara], reel
10. Turning Mary Browne [comp. Christy McNamara], jig

Compositions

1. A hornpipe for Aoife [comp. Jack Talty]
2. Any day now [comp. Jack Talty], jig
3. On the hop [comp. Jack Talty], slide
4. Ríl Nell [comp. Jack Talty], reel
5. The wily willow [comp. Jack Talty], slip jig

Jack Talty is a multi-award-winning traditional musician, composer, producer, academic, and educator from Lissycasey in county Clare. In 2021, he was appointed to the post of Lecturer in Irish Traditional Music at the School of Film, Music and Theatre at University College Cork. As a performer Jack has toured extensively throughout Europe, the United States, Australia, and Asia, and he has contributed to over 100 albums to date as a musician, producer, composer, arranger, and engineer. A regular contributor to traditional music programming on various media, Jack is also the founder of Raelach Records, a traditional music label that he established in 2011.

An experienced and regular external assessor with bodies such as Culture Ireland, Music Network, and the Arts Council of Ireland, Jack published Navigating the Traditional Arts Sector in Ireland: A Report on Resources, Challenges, and Opportunities. This pioneering report was commissioned by Trad Ireland / Traid Éireann, with the support of the Arts Council. In April 2023, Jack joined the steering committee of the National Campaign for the Arts.

Links

www.jacktalty.com

www.raelachrecords.com

https://www.ucc.ie/en/fmt/music/

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.

For all of its forty years to date, the Willie Clancy Summer School has featured traditional dancing of all kinds in natural association with instrumental music and song, following in the footsteps of Willie Clancy himself. Exhibition solo step-dances and set-dancing have been to the fore in concerts, classes and workshops, and in recent years old-style step-dancing from Clare and elsewhere, Conamara sean-nós dancing, and two-hand dancing have been added to the bill of fare.

Reproduced here from the collections of the Irish Traditional Music Archive are documentary dance videos recorded by ITMA staff at the School in the early years of the new millennium, from 2001 to 2008. Included are old-style step-dancer Céline Tubridy from Co Donegal, Aidan Vaughan from Miltown Malbay with an exhibition of Clare battering, Margaret Wray from England with a solo set dance, Mick Mulkerrin from Glasgow and Co Meath and Mairéad Casey from Co Longford with a two-hander of Conamara sean-nós, and the Dublin-based set-dance group Brook’s Academy, which drew its inspiration from the Summer School and has gone on to teach hundreds of dancers in the headquarters of Na Píobairí Uilleann in Dublin over the last thirty years. Appearing here are Terry Cullen, Mary Friel, Sighle Friel, Pascale Gaudry, Vincent Heywood, Irene Martin, Terry Moylan, Mary Murray, Eileen O’Doherty, Jerry O’Reilly, and Gerry Ryan. Musicians include Michael Tubridy, Breanndán Ó Beaglaoich, Timmy O’Connor, Bobby Gardiner, and the Mulcahy Family.

With thanks to the dancers and musicians, and to the organisers of the Willie Clancy Summer School.

Nicholas Carolan & Treasa Harkin, 1 June 2012

Co Clare fiddle player Joe Ryan (1928–2008), from Inagh, lived for most of his life in Dublin and in Co Meath, and also spent time in London. A regular session player, he was a prizewinner from the early 1950s at the All-Ireland Fleadh Cheoil and the Oireachtas cultural festival, and a member of several ceili bands, notably the Fiach Roe in Clare and the Castle in Dublin. His regular playing companion was fellow-Clareman, fiddle and concertina player John Kelly.

A personal friend of Willie Clancy’s, Joe taught at the Willie Clancy Summer School in Miltown Malbay, Co Clare, since its inception in 1973. Beginning in 1999 he was one of the older players whom Kerry fiddle player Máire O’Keeffe brought in every year to play for fiddle students at the School and to talk to them about their music and their life in music. For five years Irish Traditional Music Archive staff filmed these musical and oral history occasions, as unobtrusively as possible in the midst of the other ongoing music classes and all the hubbub of the School. A selection of music and talk is presented here from Joe Ryan’s contributions to these unique events.

With thanks to Joe Ryan, to the organisers of the Willie Clancy Summer School, & to Dr Máire O’Keeffe (who presented an illustrated lecture on this aspect of her work to the 2013 WCSS).

Nicholas Carolan & Treasa Harkin, 1 August 2013

For such a small instrument, the mouth-organ is physically hard to play, especially for jigs and reels, and that may be one of the reasons it is not more commonly used in Irish traditional music. In the past it was often given as a Christmas present to children and the tuneless results did not add to its status. But in the right hands the mouth-organ is very compatible with the nature of the music, and it is particularly popular in Co Wexford, the county with which it is associated above all others. In recent years, the instrument has been enjoying a renaissance in traditional music circles, one driven by several virtuoso players, some of whom simultaneously play the concertina. The once universal term ‘mouth-organ’ has been disappearing to be replaced by ‘harmonica’, an indication that the favoured form of the instrument now is the uniquely reeded chromatic form.

As a reflection of its rise in popularity, the harmonica has been taught in recent years at the annual Willie Clancy Summer School in Miltown Malbay, Co Clare, and has been allocated its own annual concert at the venue of The Mill. The recordings presented here were filmed by Irish Traditional Music Archive staff at the second such concert, on 11 July 2013.

With thanks to Padraig Enright, Rick Epping, Mick Kinsella, and John & Pip Murphy for permission to present these recordings, and to the organisers of the Willie Clancy Summer School for facilitating ITMA in making them.

Nicholas Carolan, Brian Doyle & Treasa Harkin, 1 October 2013

From the early years of the Willie Clancy Summer School, which was founded in Miltown Malbay, Co Clare, in 1973, Na Píobairí Uilleann, the Dublin-based organisation for uilleann pipers, has played a central role in organising the teaching, refurbishing and playing of the pipes at the School.

From the 1980s, uilleann pipers played for their fellow pipers on an organised basis after morning classes at their centre on the Ballard Road, and in recent years these lunchtime recitals have moved to take place in Halla an Phobail, the Miltown Malbay community hall, for the wider audience of all those attending the School.

Presented here are Halla an Phobail performances, recorded by Irish Traditional Music Archive staff,  by two of the leading contemporary pipers who featured at the July 2011 recitals: Mickey Dunne of Limerick and Jimmy O’Brien Moran of Waterford.

With thanks to the performers for permission to upload recordings of their playing here, and to Na Píobairí Uilleann and the Willie Clancy Summer School for facilitating ITMA in making the recordings.

Nicholas Carolan & Treasa Harkin, 1 February 2014

ITMA are delighted to make available a digital edition of Micheal Tubridy’s A selection of Irish traditional step dances (2018).

The steps in this book come from people who learned their dancing in the old school, in the early part of the 20th century, and this form is generally described as Traditional Irish Step Dancing. It is a form of dancing which is not really competition orientated, even though the odd competition is held, so there is no need for a stiff body posture. The arms may hang loosely by the side, the body be held in its natural upright position, and the legs should always be bent slightly at the knees, to give a bounce or spring or easy style to the step.

Michael Tubridy, from the introduction to the 2nd edition

In 1998 Brooks Academy published the first edition of this book, which used a unique notation system devised by Michael to describe step dances which he and his wife Céline had learned from dance masters Dan Furey (1910−1994) and James Keane (1917−2000). Both men, from Labasheeda, Co Clare, perpetuated an older style of traditional step dancing. Michael and Céline brought this local tradition to another generation through teaching in Ireland and abroad. In 2007 they released an instructional DVD Step Dancing with Céline and Michael Tubridy. In 2018 Micheal published a second edition of the book and another DVD, with a further 9 dances.

Michael Tubridy has generously allowed ITMA to publish the DVD recordings and his notation, and this page brings together the learning tools for all 18 dances from the book.

For each dance there is a video recording at normal dance tempo first, followed by a performance at a slower tempo for learning purposes. Individual steps are isolated and slowed to highlight certain phrases of the dance. Voice-over instructions can be heard from Michael and Céline throughout the videos. Links to the individual steps are available when viewed on the ITMA YouTube channel.

Each dance also has a PDF download of the steps in notation, as it appeared in the printed book. A PDF download of the full book is also available.

ITMA would like to thank Michael Tubridy, and his late wife Céline, for permission to publish this material on its website.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

The Irish Traditional Music Archive documents contemporary Irish traditional music activity as keenly as it acquires historical material, and every year since 1993 its staff has carried out field-recording at various festivals throughout the country, as well as on other occasions. Recordings are made in audio and video formats, and are made available to the general public for reference access and study within the Archive.

In the last year or so ITMA Field-Recordings Officer Danny Diamond has been supplementing the audio and video field-recordings made by himself and other staff by also photographing singers, musicians and dancers, in his own time. A selection of these photographs, taken during recording trips in the first half of 2010, is presented here. They come from the Frankie Kennedy Winter School in Gweedore, Co Donegal, in January; the Inishowen Folk Song and Ballad Seminar, Co Donegal, in March; Sean-Nós Cois Life, Dublin, in April; and the Willie Clancy Summer School, Co Clare, in July.

For further examples of Danny Diamond’s photography, see his website www.dannydiamond.ie.

With thanks to Danny Diamond and to the traditional performers here who are the subjects of his photographs.

Nichols Carolan & Danny Diamond, 1 August 2010