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

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

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

Nicholas Carolan & Treasa Harkin, 1 December 2014

The harp is the oldest of the Irish traditional instruments still played, and after teetering on the brink of extinction in the 19th century it entered on a period of revival in the 1890s, a revival that is now over a hundred years old and one that has given rise to its own traditions.

In modern times, the playing of the Irish harp – and its ancient and modern traditions – has been fostered by the Irish harping society Cairde na Cruite, Friends of the Harp, which was founded in 1960 and must be the oldest existing Irish organisation dedicated to a single musical instrument. Cairde na Cruite celebrated in 2010 the fiftieth anniversary of its foundation and also the twenty-fifth anniversary of its annual residential summer school in Termonfeckin, Co Louth; for further information click here.

Contemporary Irish harpers, playing wire-strung and gut-strung instruments, form a large and thriving community, with many schools and festivals, competitions and workshops, and there are many such professional harpers to be found world-wide. The following tracks offer an introduction to the Irish harp of the present day; they have been kindly donated to the Irish Traditional Music Archive to mark the Cairde na Cruite anniversaries by the players and their record companies as noted

With thanks to the harpers featured and to their record companies.

Nicholas Carolan & Danny Diamond, 1 December 2010