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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Written & Researched by:

Liam O’Connor

With thanks to:

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

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

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

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

ITMA Staff.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Written & Researched by:

Liam O’Connor

With thanks to:

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

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

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

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

ITMA Staff.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Written & Researched by:

Liam O’Connor

With thanks to:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bainigí sult as an gceol draíochtúil seo.

Written & Researched by:

Liam O’Connor

With thanks to:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Elizabeth (Bess) Cronin, ‘The Queen of Irish Song’ as Séamus Ennis called her, was probably the best-known Irish female traditional singer of her time. Collectors came from far and near to hear and record her singing. Séamus Ennis collected her songs for the Irish Folklore Commission in the mid-1940s, and again, with Brian George, for the BBC in the early 1950s. American collectors also recorded her: Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress in 1951, Jean Ritchie and George Pickow in 1952, and Diane Hamilton in 1956.

Bess, who was my grandmother, was born on 30 May 1879, the eldest of five children of Seán ‘Máistir’ Ó hIarlaithe and Maighréad Ní Thuama. Her father was headmaster in the school of Barr d’Ínse (hence the epithet ‘Máistir’, schoolmaster), in the Fuithirí (Fuhirees) area of West Cork, near the Cork-Kerry border. Bess had four sisters and one brother, as well as two half-brothers by the Master’s first marriage. In her mid-teens, however, Bess was sent to help out on the farm of her uncle, Tomás Ó hIarfhlaithe (Tomás Bheity), and his wife, who were childless. It was during those formative years, first with her parents, then with her uncle and aunt, that she acquired most of her songs.

In a recorded interview with Alan Lomax, Bess recalled how she had learned most of her songs:

Well, I learned a lot of them from my mother; and then I learned more of them from … We had … Well, we used to have lots of servants, you know. There’d be servants at the time. You’d have one now for, say, five or six months, and so on; and maybe that one would leave and another one would come. There’d be some new person always coming or going. Or a girl, cousins and friends, coming along like that and all, you know anyway?

On another occasion, Bess recorded how she first came to learn the song called Mo Mhúirnín Bán.

She was asleep in bed one night when she was woken by a strange noise, which she thought at first was the sound of ghosts! She hid under the bedclothes but poked her head out after a while and listened: the sound was that of the women below churning butter! Her mother had to attend a funeral the next day, and had to have the butter churned and ready for collection before she left the house. An elderly neighbour had come to the house that evening (unknownst to Bess) and she and the other women spent the night sewing and then churning, with the old woman singing songs all the time. Bess heard her singing:

Ní sa chnoc is aoirde a bhíonn mo bhuíon-sa
Ach i ngleanntán aoibhinn abhfad ó láimh;
Mar a labhrann a’ chuach faoi chuan san oíche ann …

She jumped out of bed, ran downstairs, and told the startled women what had been going through her head upstairs in the bed. She then insisted that the old woman teach her the song, which she duly did, there and then,

The old woman recited the song three or four times, and Bess had it before the breakfast, along with many more (d’fhoghlamaíos seó acu uaithe an uair chéanna), but some of these she later forgot (do chailleas ’na dhiaidh san cuid acu).

In 1946, Séamus Ó Duilearga (James Hamilton Delargy), Director of the Irish Folklore Commission, conceived a plan to send collectors to the various Gaeltacht areas of the country, in order to record (in written form and in sound) samples of the story-telling and folklore of those areas, in particular, where the Irish language was felt to be in danger. Beginning in 1947, under the supervision of Seamus Ennis, the first field trips for song-recording were undertaken. The pioneering nature of this scheme deserves to be emphasised: the BBC, for example, did not undertake extensive field operations until the advent of portable tape recorders in the early 1950s.

The 1947 ‘expedition’, however, had been undertaken in cooperation with the BBC, whose Director of Recorded Programmes, R.V.A. (Brian) George — himself a Donegal-man and a singer — ‘was largely responsible for persuading the BBC to take the initiative’ of establishing its own archive of folksongs and folkmusic. The results of the Irish trip were sufficiently successful to convince the authorities in London that much material still remained to be recorded and the result was a five-year project for systematic field recording throughout Britain and Ireland, which was undertaken between 1952 (when Seamus Ennis was recruited from Radio Éireann) and 1957. (Seamus was with the Commission from 1 June 1942 until 1 August 1947, when he went to Radio Éireann, where he was Outside Broadcast Officer.)

These CBÉ and BBC field trips recorded songs from Bess Cronin in May and August 1947 and at various dates subsequently, up to August, September and November 1952. Something of the excitement of these recording sessions can be felt in the descriptions of them that Bess included in the letters she wrote to my father at the time:

‘The Old Plantation’, Tuesday, 25th Nov., 1949.

… We were watching and waiting all the week, and no one coming. We were nearly after forgetting about them. We heard Seamus came to Macroom on Wednesday: tomorrow week. Mick was in town, and Johnny was gone with them, and the old Mrs Lynch came down with Jocey (as Seamus calls her). He couldn’t ask questions, but they said the party were gone out to Keeffe’s place. We were waiting on.

In 1951 the great American folksong collector, Alan Lomax, began the collecting that was to result in the publication of the Irish volume in his Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music (New York, 1955), which contained songs recorded from Bess, amongst many others. Lomax had been introduced to Bess by Séamus Ennis and he recorded songs from her in both English and Irish. He also had interesting conversations with her, snatches of which are reproduced on the recording. When asked, for example, where and when she sang, Bess replied:

I sang here, there and everywhere: at weddings and parties and at home, and milking the cows in the stall, and washing the clothes, and sweeping the house, and stripping the cabbage for the cattle, and sticking the sciollán’s [seed potatoes] abroad in the field, and doing everything.

It is interesting to note, however, that not every song appealed to her, and in fact she surprised one BBC collector (Marie Slocombe) by singing the opening verse of Lord Randal and no more. When asked if she had the rest of the song, the following conversation ensued:

MS — ‘Do you remember any more, what happened (in the song)?’
BC — ‘No, no, no, I don’t. I often heard it. I often heard it.’
MS — ‘Where?’
BC — ‘I often heard it.’
MS — ‘You haven’t heard it all.’
BC — ‘I often heard it, but I never learned it, no. I don’t know, I didn’t care for it, or something. I didn’t bother about learning it, but just that I had that much, now.’

In addition to these other collectors, of course, there was also the material collected by my father, Donncha Ó Cróinín, on his regular visits home from teacher-training college in Dublin, and by my uncle Seán Ó Cróinín, who, from 1939 to the year of his death, in 1965 (with a break during the War), was full-time collector for the Irish Folklore Commission in Co. Cork.

The Songs of Elizabeth Cronin

‘Tis twenty long years since this book first appeared’ could be the opening line of a Bess Cronin song (perhaps sung to the air of ‘Tis ten weary years since I left Ireland’s shore’). It is hard to believe that two decades and more have passed since The Songs of Elizabeth Cronin was first published, but although the original edition went through two print runs, it sold out quickly and is now exceedingly hard to find, either in the second-hand bookstores or online.

The first edition contained everything relating to the songs that I was able to find among the surviving paper and printed records, from family memorabilia and from sources such as the Irish Folklore Commission archives (now the Department of Irish Folklore in University College Dublin) and the recordings of her singing made by the IFC, the BBC and by various American collectors. The two CDs of Bess’s songs, both in Irish and in English, that accompanied the book offered a representative selection of her song repertoire and of her singing style. The intention was to offer the interested reader — as distinct from those who simply wanted to hear Bess’s singing, without regard to anything that might have to do with her own family background or the origins of her songs — something approximating to a complete dossier of information concerning the surviving parallel written tradition of the songs that she herself had picked up by ear from the singing of her family, friends and neighbours.

I first became involved in the production of the book and the accompanying CDs after my father Donncha passed away in 1990. Among his surviving papers were transcripts (some hand-written, some typed) of various songs, mostly in Irish, which he had made from the recordings that he had to hand in the years before his death. (He was, for whatever reason, never aware of the treasury of recordings that Jean Ritchie and George Pickow had made.) According to a letter that he wrote to me (dated 2 June 1989), most of these recordings had been put together for him in the 1950s and ’60s, by Leo Corduff, then technical assistant in the Irish Folklore Commission, from original IFC acetate disks or from whatever BBC recordings were to hand. These originally acetate or reel-to-reel recordings were subsequently transferred to miniature cassette tapes, with a corresponding further decline in their audio quality.

The most significant modern advance on all previous efforts to put together a collection of Bess Cronin songs was represented by the decision to acquire the services of Harry Bradshaw (then working in Radio Teilifís Éireann) to re-master all the recordings chosen for inclusion in the publication, and to recruit the expertise of Nicholas Carolan (then director of the Irish Traditional Music Archive) and his young colleague, Glenn Cumiskey, in order to put together a representative selection of the re-mastered recordings and arrange them in the two accompanying CDs.

At the end of one of the several launches that took place to mark the original publication of The Songs of Elizabeth Cronin (this time in Cúil Aodha, near Bess’s home place), I was approached by a man who identified himself as Seán Ó Muimhneacháin, of Cúil a’ Bhuacaigh (parish of Kilnamartra, Co. Cork). He produced a small brown envelope that contained an old school copybook, the last few pages of which were filled with handwritten songs by Bess Cronin. Seán explained that the copybook had been borrowed many years previously by Bess’s good friend, John O’Connell, but was forgotten and never returned. It had come down, however, through the hands of a distant relative. Now, through Seán’s generosity, the copybook that had somehow survived all those years was finally returned, and from it I have been able to add six more items to the original collection of 196 songs, four of them different versions of songs that were already in the collection, while in the case of two songs the texts are appearing for the first time.

The Songs of Elizabeth Cronin Traditional Irish Singer. 2nd rev. ed. (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2021) with 2 accompanying CDs is now available to purchase online from ITMA or in person at 73 Merrion Square, Dublin 2.

ITMA would like to thank Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, Sam Tranum and the staff at Four Courts Press for their assistance in preparing this blog.

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Having begun in 1993 a programme of audio studio recording, with ancillary video recording, soon after it had moved to new premises at 63 Merrion Square, Dublin (see here for details), the Irish Traditional Music Archive continued with the programme in 1994 and 1995. Again these recordings were made by Aidan McGovern, Glenn Cumiskey and Sadhbh Nic Ionnraic, and interviews were conducted by Nicholas Carolan, with the aim of documenting material and performance technique rather than producing items for publication.

Three performers among those recorded in those years were: Limerick-born and Galway-resident accordion player and repairer Charlie Harris, who has been much influenced by historic Irish-American recordings and who was in those years a long-time member of the group Shaskeen; Eilís Ní Shúilleabháin, a member of a well regarded west Cork family of traditional singers and an Oireachtas prize-winner, who was then living in Co Limerick; and Dublin uilleann piper (and whistle and flute player) Peter Browne, now also well known as a presenter and producer with the national broadcaster RTÉ Radio. A selection of their video recordings is reproduced below, courtesy of the artists.

The full audio and video recordings from which these selections come are available for reference listening and viewing within ITMA.

ITMA is grateful to Charlie Harris, to Eilís Ní Shúilleabháin, & to Peter Browne for permission to bring these recordings to a wider audience than was originally envisaged.

Nicholas Carolan & Treasa Harkin, 1 February 2013

Songs from Ballyvourney, County Cork, with Irish texts and translations. Parts I – III / collected by A. Martin Freeman and copiously annotated by the collector, L. E. Broadwood, Frank Kidson, A. G. Gilchrist and Robin Flower

The 147 song airs, variant airs and melodic fragments presented here come from an important collection of 84 songs in Irish songs collected by the English scholar A. Martin Freeman in the Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking) area of Ballyvourney, Co Cork, in 1913 and 1914. The melodies were carefully noted by him from singers in their homes and at social gatherings, using a tuning fork and staff notation.

The Freeman Ballyvourney collection was published by the Folk-Song Society of London from 1920 to 1921. Facsimiles of the published collection and more information about it are also available.

Nicholas Carolan, Treasa Harkin & Jackie Small, 14 May 2015.

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

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

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

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

Nicholas Carolan, 1 February 2009

As usual, 2013 was a busy year for the recording staff of the Irish Traditional Music Archive who were at work at festivals and concerts, recitals and lectures throughout the country. Hundreds of hours of music, song and dance were captured on audio and video, and have been transferred to user-friendly formats, and catalogued, for access by present-day visitors to ITMA and for posterity.

The selection of audio recordings presented here from just some of the ITMA 2013 recording trips are a sampler of what is available to visitors. The recordings were made variously at the Inishowen Singers International Folk Song and Ballad Seminar in Donegal in March, at the Cruinniú na bhFliúit gathering in west Cork in April, at the Willie Clancy Summer School in west Clare in July, at the Frank Harte Festival in Dublin in September, at the William Kennedy Piping Festival in Armagh in November, and at the first-ever ITMA concert the same month in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin.

With thanks to the artists for permission to reproduce their performances, and to the organisers of the various events for their cooperation in facilitating ITMA’s recording activity.

Nicholas Carolan & Danny Diamond, 1 December 2013

The fifteen tracks in our audio playlist this month are a selected snapshot of newly composed tunes and songs commercially released by Irish traditional musicians and singers between autumn 2015 and spring 2016.  The collection highlights the wide spectrum and diversity present in contemporary Irish traditional music and song.  Performers/composers featured are Irish, Australian, English, Finnish, Polish and American and bring different approaches in terms of style, arrangement, instruments and sources of inspiration. This collection also highlights ITMA’s remit to collect traditional music in a broad and inclusive way reflective of each generation of performers.

Cruinniú na bhFliúit is by now a well-established flute gathering held annually in Cúil Aodha, west Co Cork: the 2013 event, which was recorded by Irish Traditional Music Archive staff, was the 6th in the series. A key part of the Cruinniú is a ‘showcase‘ concert which gives two lesser-known young musicians an opportunity to display their talents.

The 2013 showcase featured Fergus McGorman of Ratoath, Co Meath, and Tim McHugh of Newport, Co Mayo, and it took place on 5 April in the Mills Inn, Baile Bhúirne. With the kind permission of the two flute players and the cooperation of the Cruinniú, ten tracks from their joint recital are reproduced below.

ITMA has been recording the programme of events at Cruinniú na bhFliúit on audio and video since 2010, and all its recordings of the different gatherings are available for listening and viewing to visitors to 73 Merrion Square. For other online ITMA recordings made at the Cruinniú, see below for audio from the 2010 concert, and for videos filmed at the 2012 gathering.

With thanks to Tim McHugh and Fergus McGorman for permission to reproduce their performances, and to the organisers of Cruinniú na bhFliúit for photographs and for facilitating the recording.

Nicholas Carolan & Danny Diamond, 1 June 2013

ITMA made audio and video field recordings at the April 2010 Cruinniú na bhFliúit (a gathering of flutes) was held over three days in Ballyvourney, Co Cork, with flute recitals, seminars, classes, discussions and lectures, and a final concert.

The German flute, so called – the simple-system wooden transverse flute – was first used for the playing of traditional music in Ireland in the 1710s, but was not taken up widely by Irish musicians until about the mid-1800s, by which time it was being used as an instrument in temperance bands and political bands, and had been generally displaced in classical music by keyed metal flutes. Since then strong regional traditions of Irish flute playing have grown up, particularly in the regions of Sligo-Roscommon-Leitrim, Clare-Limerick, and east Ulster.

The playing of the wooden flute has grown phenomenally in the course of the Irish traditional music revival of the last forty or so years, especially among women players. Virtuoso performers have emerged, new playing techniques have evolved, and new instruments are being manufactured. But flute players have not followed warpipers, harpers or uilleann pipers in coming together to promote the playing of their instrument specifically and make common cause – until recently.

In 2006, 2008 and 2010 Cruinniú na bhFliúit (a gathering of flutes) was held over three days in Ballyvourney, Co Cork, with flute recitals, seminars, classes, discussions and lectures, and a final concert. ITMA made audio and video field recordings at the April 2010 Cruinniú, with the kind cooperation of the festival organisers and the participating flute players, and a selection of the recordings from the final concert is presented here.

This year’s Cruinniú na bhFliúit will take place on 27–30 April 2011, again in Ballyvourney. For programme and other details see here.

With thanks to Hammy Hamilton, Conall Ó Gráda, and the flute players who have kindly agreed to have recordings of their 2010 concert performances reproduced here.

Nicholas Carolan & Danny Diamond, 1 April 2011

Máire is “the doyenne of Irish harp players” (Scotland on Sunday) and 2001 recipient of Irish music’s most prestigious Award, Gradam Ceoil TG4 – Traditional Musician of the Year – “for the excellence and pioneering force of her music, the remarkable growth she has brought to the music of the harp in Ireland and for the positive influence she has had on the young generation of harpers.” A multiple All-Ireland and Pan-Celtic winner, she developed profoundly influential techniques for harp performance of traditional Irish music, heard on her pioneering New-Strung Harp (1985), her recent trio album with The Casey Sisters and seven duo and two quartet recordings with guitarist Chris Newman – with whom she tours worldwide. A TV programme in TG4’s ‘Sé mo Laoch series about Máire and her sister Nollaig was recently broadcast.

Máire is “the doyenne of Irish harp players” (Scotland on Sunday) and 2001 recipient of Irish music’s most prestigious Award, Gradam Ceoil TG4 – Traditional Musician of the Year – “for the excellence and pioneering force of her music, the remarkable growth she has brought to the music of the harp in Ireland and for the positive influence she has had on the young generation of harpers.” A multiple All-Ireland and Pan-Celtic winner, she developed profoundly influential techniques for harp performance of traditional Irish music, heard on her pioneering New-Strung Harp (1985), her recent trio album with The Casey Sisters and seven duo and two quartet recordings with guitarist Chris Newman – with whom she tours worldwide. A TV programme in TG4’s ‘Sé mo Laoch series about Máire and her sister Nollaig was recently broadcast.

Born in 1953 in Belfast, Colin Hamilton has been known as Hammy from his early childhood. Initially a singer, drawn to traditional music through the Clancy Brothers, he began to play the flute in the mid 1970s as part of the Belfast flute renaissance.. In 1976 he moved to Cork in connection with ethnomusicological research, mainly supporting himself by busking and becoming a coalman. He later gained a Phd in the area of Commercial Recordings of Traditional Music.

In 1979 he began flute making in the West Cork Gaeltacht of Cúil Aodha, where he still lives, although largely retired from flute making.

He now divides his time between many interests including ethnomusicological research…largely successful, gardening…moderately so, and salmon fishing…not really.

Born in Cork in 1961, Conal has played flute since he was small. He has recorded two solo albums, The Top of Coom (1990) and Cnoc Buí (2008) and has published a book on traditional flute-playing, ‘An Fheadóg Mhór, Traditional Flute Technique’.. These days Conal teaches (privately, in UCC and at summer schools) and plays with the band The Raw Bar Collective. He also features alongside púca’s and fairies in the theatre show Nóta Stóta for whom he composes all the music. During the summer Conal runs a cultural immersion course called Millíní Music. In his spare time he tries to get in a bit of fishing, hammers away on the harmonica and talks to ravens.

Compositions

1. Fios feasa fé gheasa [comp. Conal Ó Gráda], jig
2. Coiscéim na sí [comp. Conal Ó Gráda], jig
3. Kung Fu Katie [comp. Conal Ó Gráda], reel
4. The Karate Kid [comp. Conal Ó Gráda], reel
5. Dearcadh an fhéig dhuibh [comp. Conal Ó Gráda], air
6. Cosán na guagóige [comp. Conal Ó Gráda], hop jig
7. Preabphort Ellie Mhicilín [comp. Conal Ó Gráda], hop jig
8. Tairngreacht na caillí dubh [comp. Conal Ó Gráda], air

Sets

1. Jig Set : Fios feasa fé gheasa [comp. Conal Ó Gráda], jig ; Coiscéim na sí [comp. Conal Ó Gráda], jig
2. Reel Set : Kung Fu Katie [comp. Conal Ó Gráda], reel ; The Karate Kid [comp. Conal Ó Gráda], reel
3. Hop Jig Set : Cosán na guagóige [comp. Conal Ó Gráda], hop jig ; Preabphort Ellie Mhicilín [comp. Conal Ó Gráda], hop jig

On midsummer’s day, 21 June 2021, Conal Ó Gráda performed live in ITMA to an online audience, accompanied by Caoimhín Ó Fearghail on guitar. This was the first in The Given Note series from ITMA, and featured both musicians playing and talking about their music. All of the tunes for this month’s Saothar were included in the concert.