In September and October of 2017, I delved into the ITMA collection to learn more about the ballad sheet trade and street singers in Ireland. Many articles, essays, theses, and books have been dedicated to the history of ballad sheets, the printers of the ballad sheets, and the hawkers and street singers who sold them.

Much of the research about ballad sheets and their history has been committed to print. The ITMA library holds theses by John Moulden, Jen Headley, and Colin Neilands on the subject of ballad sheets. Many books, such as Songs of Irish Rebellion by George-Denis Zimmerman and Narrative Singing in Ireland by Hugh Shields, contain illuminating research on the history of the ballad sheet in Ireland. Articles and essays on this topic appear in a variety of music magazines and academic journals. One example is Maura Murphy’s frequently cited article, which appeared in Ulster Folklife Magazine (Vol. 25).

In addition to the many written descriptions, the collection at ITMA features a few first-hand accounts of the ballad sheet trade and street singing captured on audio recordings. Collectors like Alan Lomax and Séamus Ennis interviewed and recorded street singers from Ireland such as Margaret Barry and John Martin.

Jim Carroll and Pat MacKenzie are two other song collectors who have preserved tales of the ballad sheet trade on tape. Originally from England, they now live in Miltown Malbay, Co. Clare. From 1973 onward, Jim and Pat recorded a vast store of songs, stories, and folklore from Irish Travellers based in London. They kindly donated copies of all the material they collected to ITMA. Selections of these recordings, including those featuring a particularly rich source of information about ballad sheets and street singing — a Traveller named Mikeen McCarthy — can also be found on the commercial recordings … And That’s My Story and From Puck to Appleby.

Michael ‘Mikeen’ McCarthy was born in Caherciveen, Co. Kerry in 1931. With his wife, Nonie Dooley, he first went to England in 1952 before moving permanently to London during the mid-1960s. Mikeen was skilled in a number of trades, including tinsmithing, horse-dealing, droving, and caravan building. As a teenager, Mikeen also worked as a ballad hawker at fairs and markets around Co. Kerry.

Jim Carroll and Pat MacKenzie first met Mikeen McCarthy in a pub west of London in 1975. They became close friends with Mikeen and regularly visited, spending time with him up until his death in 2004. They collected a wealth of songs, stories, folklore, and Traveller lore from Mikeen — including many enjoyable accounts of his time selling ballads.

In the following audio clip, Mikeen speaks with Jim Carroll about selling ballads.

The Dublin ballad hawker Zozimus wasn’t alone in his ability to attract a crowd to hear his songs and buy his ballad sheets. Many accounts exist of the ability of a street singer to draw a large crowd and to earn a good living by selling ballads.^{1, 2, 3}

In the following clip, Mikeen remembers a singer with this ability: a Traveller named Charlie Reilly.

In this final audio clip, we hear Mikeen recounting a story of one of his most successful days selling ballads.

Want to know more?

The material referenced in this blog is just a portion of what is held in the ITMA Collection related to ballad sheets and street singers. There are many more articles on the topic by people such as William Allingham, Alf MacLochlainn, and Julie Henigan.

Plenty of written material has been published about the 19th-century ballad singer Zozimus, including his own memoir, and, thankfully, street singers from more recent times — like Margaret Barry and the Pecker Dunne — are well-documented in commercial recordings, such as I Sang Through the Fairs and Ireland’s Own Pecker Dunne.

I hope this material in the ITMA Collection will prove as valuable a source of interest and knowledge to others as it has to me.

On Saturday 14 May 2016, ITMA hosted a talk by Dr Reg Hall to celebrate the launch of 2 new CD collections from Topic Records.  It Was Mighty, It Was Great Altogether and the free e-book A Few Tunes of Good Music document Irish music in London from the 1950s to the 2010s.   The 6 CDs in The Voice of the People series were edited by Reg Hall so the occasion also offered a timely opportunity to pay tribute to his lifetime’s work as researcher, musician and collector of Irish music in London over a period of 60 years.  Nicholas Carolan officially launched the collection and introduced Reg to a packed house in the ITMA Reading Room and to those who were joining us online via the ITMA YouTube channel. In the following hour, through sound, story and image, Reg brought us on a rich and memorable journey to the world of Irish music in London. 

ITMA would like to thank Dr Reg Hall for permission to reproduce this presentation on its website.

The family photographs of those involved in Irish traditional music are often a valuable informal record of the music as seen from the inside, and preserve images and memories of events, activities and organisations that would otherwise be forgotten. This is the case with a selection of images recently donated to the Irish Traditional Music Archive by Síle Quinn-Davidson of London and Ballinasloe, Co Galway, in memory of her father James Quinn, and reproduced here.

James Quinn (1915–1960), born in Briarfield, Ballinasloe, Co Galway, was an uilleann piper and piccolo player who was prominent in Irish music circles in London in the 1940s and 1950s. Left-handed, he played a set of pipes made for him by Leo Rowsome of Dublin, and made his own reeds. Having gone to work in Kilburn, London, as a young man, he took part in many house sessions there with other traditional musicians from the 1940s, and also played in Irish dance halls such as The Hibernian on Fulham Broadway and The Banba in Kilburn. With his wife Susan (née Doherty) from Dungannon, Co Tyrone, a singer with a large repertory of Irish songs learned from her grandmother, he kept an open house for musicians, playing music particularly with uilleann piper Tommy Coley from Mullingar, Co Westmeath, fiddle player Tom Sullivan from Cork, London-born uilleann piper Pat Goulding, and fiddle player Julia Clifford from Kerry. Following a routine operation James Quinn died in his mid-forties. A huge funeral procession accompanied his coffin to the Mail Train at Euston Station, led by warpiper Larry O’Dowd, and he was buried in Abbeyknockmoy, Co Galway.

His daughter Síle, a stepdancer, was one of the first pupils of the Ted Kavanagh School of Dancing in Cricklewood, and was a prizewinner at Bethnal Green Feis. Music continues in the present generation of the Quinn family: in Briarfield, accordion player Gary, singer Norrie, and banjo and mandolin player Kieran, and in Dublin, singer and guitarist Michael Quinn.

With thanks for images and information to Síle Quinn-Davidson, Galway, and Jimmy Shields, London

Nicholas Carolan, 1 February 2010

Postscript

Since this web page was first put up, we have received a scan of another photograph of James Quinn by donation from Reg Hall, the well known London musician and music historian who has been closely involved with Irish traditional music activity in London since the 1950s. Reg only saw James Quinn once, in the Ceilidh Club in Cecil Sharp House one Sunday afternoon in the mid-1950s. He clearly remembers him singing and playing the pipes at the same time; the song was She Moved through the Fair.

Reg’s photo, now the last one in the sequence, was taken in The Bedford Arms pub, Arlington Road, Camden Town, London, c. 1956. He received it from the late Tony Martin, but it is by an unknown photographer. It shows, left to right, Tommy Maguire almost hidden (accordion), Michael Gorman (fiddle), Paddy Breen (flageolet), Margaret Barry (banjo), James (aka Seamus, Jim) Quinn (uilleann pipes), & Tony Martin (fiddle). The man in front may have been named Liddy.

With thanks for photograph and information to Reg Hall.

NC, March 2010

This audio playlist has been curated by Irish Traditional Music Archive staff to provide a soundscape to the Decade of Centenaries. The selection reflects material of contemporary political, cultural and popular interest and is drawn from recordings held in the ITMA collections. The songs, music and speech come from wax cylinder and 78 rpm disc recordings, ranging in date from 1905−c.1940, which have been digitised by ITMA, and in the case of the wax cylinders by Henri Chamoux. They were originally recorded in Ireland, London and New York by early recording pioneers, the majority issued by commercial recording companies.

The recordings provide a backdrop to a changing Ireland: the Gaelic League and the Irish-language revival, the First World War, the 1916 Rising, and Irish and international popular music of the day, including the first wave of popular Irish-American vaudeville instrumentalists.

We drew inspiration from printed resources (see Erin remember 1916 below) as well as the Irish Military Archives’ Bureau of Military History Collection, 1913−1921. The witness statements are a rich source of information on songs, fundraising concerts, marching bands and individual musicians and singers of the period. Recordings made in Germany in 1917 of Irish prisoners of war are also an extremely valuable contemporary resource. They have been digitised by the Sound Archive of Humboldt University Berlin.

You will find more information about each recording in the playlist by selecting the arrow key to the right of each title. This will bring you to the individual page for this audio piece. Here you will find composer names, recording labels, etc. which we have been able to source. Where possible we have linked to printed versions of the sound recordings which you can also view online.

This playlist is a sampler of the many sound recordings held in ITMA which reference events during the Decade of Centenaries. ITMA will continue to catalogue and highlight historical recordings while also documenting responses to the events of 1916 in 1966 and 2016.

Grace Toland, Danny Diamond, Brian Doyle & Alan Woods, 1 March 2016

Leo Rowsome (1903–1970) was a third generation uilleann piper.  His musical and pipe making skills were inherited from his grandfather Samuel Rowsome from Ballintore. Co. Wexford and his father William who established the family pipe making and repair business in Dublin. One of six musical children, Leo was to play a pivotal role in the revival of uilleann piping in Ireland as a pipe maker, performer, teacher, organiser, advocate & publisher.  He performed extensively in Ireland and abroad, and broadcast on both radio and televsion.  His recording career began in the era of the 78 rpm disc and it is from this period that we present 12 tracks in this audio playlist.  Leo recorded with a number of 78 rpm record companies and on vinyl with Claddagh and Topic Records. The labels represented in this selection from 1926–1944 are Columbia, Decca and HMV.  The tracks span the range of Irish traditional music dance rhythms as well as airs, and are predominantly solo recordings.

The Rowsome piping tradition continues through fifth and sixth generations of the family in both playing, pipe making and publishing.

The curation of this audio playlist was inspired by the donation of a set of posters and photographs featuring Leo by his daughter Helena.  The posters and photographs are featured in an image gallery below as well as some performance related documents.

We would like to thank Helena Rowsome for the images and also the donors of the 78 rpm discs which make up this tribute to the King of the Pipers Leo Rowsome.

Jim Carroll, of Liverpool Irish descent, and Pat Mackenzie, herself an Anglo-Scot, have been immersed in traditional singing and in other oral traditions since their earliest involvement in the 1960s. They were both members of Ewan McColl’s influential Critics Group in London, and their study of traditional song there brought them in 1973 to the ongoing tape-recording of Irish Traveller singers in London and, a related project, of traditional singers in west Clare, as well as of English and Scots singers. They have lived in Co Clare since 1998. Their private collection is now one of the largest in Irish music, and they have generously deposited copies of it in the Irish Traditional Music Archive, the British Library, and other public repositories.

A wide selection of their recordings have been published on LP, cassette and CD since 1978: Paddy’s Panacea (singer Tom Lenihan, Clare, 1978, LP), Early in the Month of Spring (Irish Travellers singing & story-telling in London, 1986, cassette) incorporated in From Puck to Appleby (Irish Travellers singing in England, 2003, 2 CDs), ‘… and That’s My Story’ (British & Irish story-tellers, 1991, cassette), and Around the Hills of Clare (Clare singers, 2004, 2 CDs). Royalties have been kindly donated to ITMA and other institutions.

The selection of sound recordings given here represents only the main categories of the Carroll-Mackenzie Collection: their Traveller recordings, their Clare recordings, and their recordings of Irish musicians in London. All of the Collection is freely available for listening and study in ITMA.

With thanks to the singers and musicians presented here, and to Pat Mackenzie & Jim Carroll for their donations of digitised sound recordings, printed materials, & information over many years.

Nicholas Carolan & Danny Diamond, 1 December 2012

Acetate discs were originally used in recording studios from the 1930s to the early 1950s, before the introduction of tape recording, for making test copies of recordings. They consisted of aluminium plates covered with a thin layer of lacquer, and sound was cut directly onto the lacquer. They were only intended for temporary use and became inaudible after many playings. Acetates were also used in radio work, and some commercial companies recorded performers on acetate disc for a fee.

The eight acetate recordings presented above come from the collection of the late John Brennan, a Ballisodare, Co Sligo, flute player resident in Dublin, and they were donated to the Irish Traditional Music Archive in 2008 by his son John who lives in Denmark, per Peter Sorenson.

John Brennan was friendly with the Sligo fiddle players James ‘Lad’ O’Beirne (1911–80) and Martin Wynne (1913–98), who were resident in New York and whose playing is featured on the discs. Lad O’Beirne, who had emigrated there in 1928, had a homemade acetate disc-cutting machine, and this was doubtless the original source of most of the recordings. Martin Wynne came to the United States in 1948, and seems to have made the first two of these recordings with an unknown pianist in London before emigrating. Lad O’Beirne accompanies Wynne on piano on the latter’s New York recordings. The New York-born fiddle player Andy McGann (1928–2004) is also to be heard on one of the recordings, in duet with O’Beirne on fiddle and accompanied on piano by Jerry Wallace (1929–91). All of these musicians were influenced by the famous New York-based Sligo fiddle player and recording artist Michael Coleman (1891–1945), as can be heard in the repertory and style on the discs.

These recordings seem to have been made in the late 1940s and in 1950. The discs have been heavily used and their sound quality is now poor. The first six have been remastered to the highest level possible by Harry Bradshaw for ITMA; the other two recordings are less audible but are included for their historical and technical interest.

Do you have other acetate discs of Irish traditional music? ITMA would welcome their donation or the opportunity to copy them.

With thanks to record donor John Brennan and to Peter Sorenson for his good offices.

Nicholas Carolan, Harry Bradshaw & Danny Diamond, 1 December 2009

This booklet of texts of songs in Irish recorded by the Dublin-based baritone Denis Cox (Donnchadh Mac Coiligh) was published in 1933, presumably for the general educational market, by the Parlophone Company of London, the recording company which since 1928 had been issuing his many 78s of songs in Irish and English.

This booklet of texts of songs in Irish recorded by the Dublin-based baritone Denis Cox (Donnchadh Mac Coiligh) was published in 1933, presumably for the general educational market, by the Parlophone Company of London, the recording company which since 1928 had been issuing his many 78s of songs in Irish and English.

The 25 songs in the collection are mostly 18th- and 19th-century traditional songs, of the kind that had been popularised by the Gaelic League in their concerts since the 1890s. Originally noted from oral tradition, many of the songs had been published in the periodicals and songbooks of the League, and, after the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922, by commercial publishers. The published songs were frequently arranged for voice and piano, or for small vocal groups, by such arrangers represented here as Carl Hardebeck, Vincent O’Brien, and Hubert Rooney (who was Cox’s vocal teacher).

Traditional love songs, political songs, comic songs, praise songs, and religious songs are included in the booklet with some recently composed pieces. Remarkably, the song texts are published without English translations; one, ‘An Fhuiseog’, is a translation from English.

See also Denis Cox, Songs in Irish on 78s below.

With thanks to donor Cáit Ní Chonchubhair.

ITMA would welcome the donation of other materials of this kind which are not yet in its collections (check our catalogues here), or of their loan for copying.

Nicholas Carolan & Maeve Gebruers, 1 August 2009