ITMA SAOTHAR Bio

Nuala Kennedy is an award-winning traditional musician, singer, composer, producer and flute player. She tours in Europe, Australia and North America and has released work with Nashville’s Compass Records, Domino Records (USA), Borealis Records (CAD) Ta:Lik (NOR) and Vertical (UK) before founding her own independent label ‘Under the Arch’ in 2014.

Kennedy’s roots are in Irish music, and she plays in a trio with fiddler Tara Breen and guitarist Tony Byrne, in Oirialla with Gerry ‘fiddle’ O’ Connor and The Alt with John Doyle and Eamon O’ Leary. However she is also ‘something of a genre bender’ (Living Tradition Magazine). She holds a Masters degree in Music and trained as a classical pianist under Prof. John O’ Connor. She has toured and recorded with Indie-Poet Will Oldham/Bonnie Prince Billie, with Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub), Euros Childs (Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci), and with cutting-edge Canadian composer, the late Oliver Schroer. Kennedy was a featured artist on Janis Ian’s 2022 Grammy nominated release End of The Line.

Now living in Ennis, County Clare, Kennedy is noted for her songs and a unique Irish flute style, formed in Dundalk and honed in her long time home in Scotland. She enjoys researching and collecting traditional songs and greatly admires the music of her long time friend and fellow flute player and singer Cathal McConnell.

www.nualakennedy.com

Compositions

Rattle the doors [comp. Nuala Kennedy], hornpipe
Downtown Troy [comp. Nuala Kennedy], reel
Distant colours [comp. Nuala Kennedy], reel
Whirlpools [comp. Nuala Kennedy], jig
Lighthouse polka [comp. Nuala Kennedy]
Saltwater [comp. Nuala Kennedy], march
Flow [comp. Nuala Kennedy], reel
Coole Park on an Autumn day [comp. Nuala Kennedy], air
Baby bird [words: Nuala Kennedy, melody: traditional], song
A mother’s croon [words: Nuala Kennedy, melody: traditional], song

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 emphasising of rhythm by the use of percussion instruments is not as usual in Irish traditional music as in many other forms of traditional music, probably because of the prominent part that melody plays in the Irish tradition. Nevertheless, percussion instruments are nowadays commonly enough employed in this music, in spite of resistance from some musicians, and even though they were little used in the past. A selection of images of percussion instruments as used for accompanying dance music or song is presented below from the collections of the Irish Traditional Music Archive.

The commonest such percussion instrument played in the current tradition is the bodhran, a musical instrument now but once a useful multipurpose domestic container and utensil. In all its modern forms the bodhran has enjoyed a phenomonal growth in popularity during the last half-century (in both its noise-making and musical capacities), and this popularity has been paralleled by an astonishing development in the playing techniques brought to bear on the instrument. The bodhran naturally predominates among the images of percussion instruments reproduced below: players are seen playing it on the face and on the rim, by hand and by stick, manipulating the skin-sound by pressing on it, tuning it and singing to it.

Less often used are spoons and bones, and, since the decline of the ceili band, bass drums, snare drums and drum blocks. A gong makes a unique appearance, and our initial 19th-century newspaper image shows that any domestic implement that could make intimidating noises would be pressed into service for political purposes.

Nicholas Carolan & Treasa Harkin, 1 December 2012

Féile na Bóinne, the Drogheda Folk Festival, was first organised as a weekend festival in January 1976 by a local committee of the Tradition Club of Drogheda, with an emphasis on Co Louth performers. It was next held on a larger scale in October 1977. A great concourse of singers, musicians, and dancers came to the town from all parts of Ireland that year, and parallel sessions of recitals, concerts, workshops, lectures, and sessions were held in the Whitworth Hall, the O’Raghallaighs GAA Club, and other local venues. The festival continued on a smaller scale into the 1980s. Revived in the 1990s, Féile na Bóinne still continues annually as an autumn weekend festival.

Many of the artists at the 1976 and 1977 festivals were photographed in performance by Drogheda professional photographer Joe Dowdall of West Street. His artistic work constitutes a valuable record of traditional music of the period, memorialising older source-singers and musicians who were then being discovered, and the young performers who were learning from them, in what was a heady and exciting period for Irish traditional music. Many of the singers, musicians and dancers pictured here have since died, and it is good to be able to see them in their heyday.

In 1998 Joe Dowdall generously donated his Féile na Bóinne prints and negatives, and their copyright, to the Irish Traditional Music Archive for its use, and copies of them have since appeared in various publications.

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

With thanks to donor Joe Dowdall and to Gerry Cullen for his good offices.

Nicholas Carolan, 1 December 2009

The accompaniment of Irish traditional music and song as well as the range of instruments employed has evolved and expanded in pace with developments within the music itself. As accompanists continued to explore new avenues of expression, listening audiences have grown more appreciative of their impact on performance.

This gallery of photographs while spanning the decades is a modest selection of accompanists and their instruments from the ITMA image collection.

With thanks to Stephen Power, Dónal Lunny, Eve O’Kelly, Tony Kearns, Paul McCarthy and Danny Diamond for their permission to reproduce photographs.

Essentially, everyone who learns an Irish traditional tune is a collector of the music, and most interested people will have a memorised collection, even if they don’t sing or play an instrument. But what is normally meant by the term are those dedicated individuals who amass over time large numbers of songs and melodies and preserve them on a variety of paper media or on sound or video recordings. They may partly be motivated by personal or commercial considerations, but most collectors are altruistic, driven by a wish to preserve and share something that they themselves enjoy and value. Some may in time publish items from their collections.

The collectors featured in this gallery from the collections of the Irish Traditional Music Archive range from those of the 18th and 19th centuries who of necessity collected with pen and paper and had the rare skill of being able to jot down melodies at first hearings, to those modern collectors with the no less valuable skill of operating audio and video technology to faithfully convey the reality of live performance. A debt is owed to all of them for enabling people now and in the future to experience the past of the music, and for providing materials for its ongoing re-creation.

Also here while it is still active is a link to a recent RTÉ ‘Nationwide’ programme (this programme is no longer available on the RTÉ Player) which featured the work of the collectors Jim Carroll and Pat Mackenzie on the occasion of their recordings being made available through the Clare County Library here. An ITMA feature on their Irish collections can be found below.

With thanks to Colette Moloney, Ríonach uí Ógáin, Peter Browne, & Lisa Shields.

Nicholas Carolan & Treasa Harkin, 1 June 2015

After the concertina had been introduced to Ireland from Britain by concert recitalists of the 1830s, and was sold, manufactured and taught in Dublin from the 1850s, it spread throughout the country, in various forms, as a mass-produced instrument of popular music. By the end of the century, it had also been taken up widely by players of Irish traditional music, and its adoption coincided with the growing popularity of quadrille-style set dances among traditional dancers.

But the concertina began to fall from favour in the 1920s, eclipsed in most parts of the country by the new louder accordions, and by gramophones as sources of music for dancers. It retained its popularity however in Co Clare, to such an extent that by the 1960s it was being thought of as a purely Clare instrument. This popularity is reflected in the gallery of concertina images presented below from the collections of the Irish Traditional Music Archive.

In the last three or four decades however, with increasing prosperity, the growing availability of high-quality tuition and instruments, and of recordings by virtuoso players, the concertina has once again become a national Irish instrument.

With thanks to photographers and photograph donors Fran O’Rourke, Liam McNulty, Joe Dowdall, Chris Corlett, Orla Henihan, Danny Diamond, Steven de Paoire, & Susie Cox, and to Mick O’Connor for information. ITMA would always welcome the donation of other photographs of concertina players.

Nicholas Carolan & Treasa Harkin, 1 February 2014

Finbar Boyle (1951–2018) was drawn to Irish traditional music from his teenage years in Dundalk, Co. Louth, and he was an excellent singer in the Northern style and an occasional writer of comic songs. After some years as a national school teacher and in the public library service, he worked for ten years for the Department of Irish Folklore in University College Dublin, specialising in the conservation of audio materials. He worked subsequently for Claddagh Records in Temple Bar. From the early 1970s he was an organiser of the influential Tradition Club in Slattery’s of Capel Street and from the late 1970s he was a columnist and reviewer for In Dublin magazine. Finbar was also an organiser of the 1970s Dublin Folk Festival, a radio researcher, and, from 2006 to 2009, the programmer of traditional music for the Temple Bar Trad Fest. He also served on the ITMA Board.

Seán Corcoran (1946–2021) collected traditional music, song and dance extensively in the field for ITMA from 1994 to 2001. Operating on his own initiative, Seán organised and recorded over 70 sessions on audio or video throughout the country, and he has been the main collector for ITMA of field recordings from Northern Ireland. He was also a contributor to ITMA’s PW Joyce Microsite.

Seán had an extremely varied life in Irish traditional music. A much-admired singer and bouzouki player with an ear for a good song, he was also a collector and researcher, writer and editor, recording artist and lecturer, maker of radio and television programmes, and club and festival organiser. A native of Drogheda, Co. Louth, with a family background in traditional music and trained as a choirboy, he began his traditional singing career in the early 1960s in Carberry’s pub there, which would become the centre for traditional music in the town for decades, and he went on to sing professionally and non-professionally at intervals for the rest of his life. Known in time internationally, there was not a singing festival in Ireland at which he did not feature, and he also a frequent performer on radio and television. In 1976 he made his first commercial recording with the vocal group The Press Gang and from 1993 to 2014 recorded extensively as a member of the group Cran with flute player Desi Wilkinson and uilleann piper Ronan Browne (and initially uilleann piper and cellist Neil Martin), with a particular following in the Netherlands. As the solo unaccompanied singer he essentially was, he first recorded in America for a 1977 LP Sailing into Walpole’s Marsh while part of an Irish contingent appearing at a Festival of American Folklife in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, and he would feature solo on various other recordings until the 2012 CD Louth Mouths from Drogheda with Gerry Cullen and Dónal Maguire.

While still a teenager Seán discovered that older Louth traditional song still survived in pockets of town and county, and with Caitlín Bean Uí Chairbre he began to collect in 1964 under the aegis of the Old Drogheda Society, of which he was a co-founder, from local singers such as Bridget Cumiskey of Simcock’s Lane and Mary Ann Carolan of Tinure (the subject of a Topic LP of 1982). In 1971 he was engaged by Breandán Breathnach as a song collector in Louth for a Department of Education pilot project which also employed Dubliner Tom Munnelly. He was the director of the still-remembered initial Féile na Bóinne traditional music festivals of 1976 and 1977 in Drogheda, and a driving force in several folk clubs in the town. Based in Belfast from the early 1980s until the mid-1990s, Seán worked there with Ciaran Carson for the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, recording song and music across the north and editing three audio collections of field recordings for the Council, beginning with Here’s a Health (1986).

When attending university in Dublin from 1964, Seán became immersed in the folk scene there, singing and researching songs which he passed on to fellow singers, and organising with others the Ninety-Five Club in Harcourt Street in the 1960s and the Tradition Club in Capel Street in the 1970s. On graduation he worked at periods as a teacher and later studied ethnomusicology in Queen’s University. He was the author of articles and sleeve notes, writing at first for Breandán Breathnach’s journal Ceol in the 1960s. From 1984 to 1987 he wrote a folk column for the Belfast journal Fortnight and another later for Hot Press, and he was a contributor to the published proceedings of the 1995 UL conference ‘Blas: The Local Accent’ and the 1996 and 2003 ‘Crosbhealach an Cheoil‘ conferences. Having published local songs of his collecting in Drogheda newspapers, he brought them together with online access in 2008 in the volume Sing Out: Learn Irish Traditional Song. In 2009 he scripted and presented on TG4 Na Bailitheoirí Ceoil, three television documentaries on the collectors Edward Bunting, George Petrie and Francis O’Neill. In 2012 and 2013 he received BAI funding for the making of four radio documentaries for Louth and Waterford local radio on, respectively, the Drogheda weaver songwriter John Shiel, the Irish Folklore Commission Schools Collection, Daniel O’Connell and his monster meetings, and the Waterford music theorist Rev. Richard Henebry. He lectured frequently at festivals and in third-level institutions and in recent years conducted singing workshops as Traditional Singer in Residence for Drogheda Borough Council and at the Willie Clancy Summer School with Seán Garvey. From 2007 to 2020 he taught an annual module on Irish traditional music at Mary Immaculate college of education in Limerick.

Seán’s local history interests and political activism led to the setting up of the ‘Dúchas / Drogheda Voices’ oral history audio and video project in 1995, and to articles for the Journal of the Old Drogheda Society, of which he became chairperson. Under his stewardship the local Millmount Museum became in 2013 the first voluntary museum in the country to receive full Heritage Council accreditation.

Nicholas Carolan, 7 May 2021

During his 28-year tenure as Director of the Irish Traditional Music Archive, Nicholas Carolan contributed many articles to the ITMA website. A selection of them are presented here, and a search for his name on the website will return the full compliment.

Lorcán Ua Muireadhaigh [Laurence P. Murray] (1883−1941) was a renowned Irish language scholar, historian and collector, especially in the field of the Irish language traditions of Ulster.

Among the published works of William Forde (1797–1850) the Cork musician, editor and collector, is a selection of 100 Irish airs published in 1841 as part of his 300 National Melodies of the British Isles.

Born in Carlingford, Co. Louth, he was educated in St Malachy’s, Carlingford and St Patrick’s College, Armagh before entering Maynooth as a clerical student in 1901. The influence of the Gaelic Revival and of the exiled Professor of Irish Fr. O’Growney on college life at this time is evident, in the founding of Cuallacht Cholmcille and the Columban Record, now Irisleabhar Maighe Nuadhat. Nearer home at the opening meeting in 1903 of the County Louth Archaeological Society, he met Henry Morris, another substantial influence on his life. Laurence wrote extensively as a student and published in the aforementioned society journals. While academically applauded, he came under disciplinary scrutiny during a period of student discontent in 1907, and was asked to leave Maynooth the following year. He was ordained a priest in St Paul, Minnesota in 1910.

Following the foundation of the Omeath Summer School in 1912, Laurence returned to Ireland annually as part of the staff, and to collect songs, stories and prayers from native speakers. Over a period of seven years, he phonetically transcribed approximately 250 songs from forty people living across seven townlands. From this manuscript collection came his first book Irish Ceolta Óméith: an chéad chuid published in 1920, containing the words of thirty-four songs with notes on the local singers and versions sung.

Another twenty-three songs were published in Amhráin Chúige Uladh: cuid a haon in 1927 with tonic solfa transcriptions of the airs. The second volume was published in 1937 but unfortunately the Irish Traditional Music Archive does not have an original copy of this book in its collection. We would be delighted to receive a copy of the publication as a donation or on loan in order to digitise it and make it available online.

By this time Laurence had returned to parish life in Ireland having refused to sign an oath of allegiance in the United States following the outbreak of World War I. While conducting his duties as curate in Clonfeacle, Co. Tyrone and parish priest in Dunleer, Co.Louth, Fr. Murray continued as a language teacher, researcher, prolific writer and activist, establishing the monthly periodical An tUltach in 1924, and the renowned St Bridget’s College, Ranafast in Co. Donegal in 1925/26.

He died in the parochial house in Dunleer on 25 June 1941.

For more online information on Lorcán Ua Muireadhaigh, please see ainm.ie

References to his work can also be found in the notes to the Doegen Records Web Project: Irish Dialect Sound Recordings 1928−31 published online by the Royal Irish Academy

With thanks to Ciarán Dalton

Nicholas Carolan comes from Drogheda, Co. Louth. Founding Director of ITMA and following his retirement in 2015 is now Director Emeritus. His distinguished career includes work as a broadcaster, publisher, researcher and writer, most notably as presenter of RTE programme ‘Come West Along the Road’. From 1977 to 1992 he was secretary of the Folk Music Society of Ireland, and lectured on Traditional Irish Music in Trinity college for a period of time. Although retired Nicholas continues to publish and carry out research on various topics of interest in Irish Traditional Music.

Zoë Conway effortlessly combines a background steeped in Ireland’s rich aural music tradition with a strong founding in classical music.. She has toured worldwide and has appeared in many prestigious concert halls including Carnegie Hall, New York, The Kremlin Palace, Moscow and The National Concert Hall, Dublin. Her versatility as an instrumentalist has allowed her to perform across a broad range of genres, from guest soloist with world renowned orchestras, to touring with Riverdance and working with mainstream international acts such as Rodrigo y Gabriella, Damien Rice, Lisa Hannigan, Nick Cave and Lou Reed among others.

She has recorded on major film soundtracks including award winning Float Like A Butterfly (Samson Films 2018), Artemis Fowl (Disney 2020), Finding You (Red Sky Studio 2021) and Riverdance: The Animated Adventure (Universal 2021).

Zoë tours regularly with her husband, John Mc Intyre on guitar, and the duo have been described as “simply one of the best folk duos on the planet” (BBC). They have released two recordings to date – the newest release is a superb collection of live European performances, Live in Concert, released in spring 2017. Their debut duo album, entitled Go Mairir I Bhfad (Long Life To You), received a glorious 5 stars from The Irish Times.

Compositions

1. Rounding Malin Head, reel
2. Ringing the bell, jig and slip jig
3. The Scordisae, reel
4. The white deer, march
5. Wild strawberry hill, reel
6. The horse’s tail, reel
7. Ómós Sheamuis, march and slip jig
8. The Caledon line, jig
9. Faoiseamh a gheobhadsa, song / words by Máirtín Ó Direáin ; music by Zoë Conway and John Mc Intyre