This month’s playlist offers an unique opportunity to hear rare recordings made by the late Tom Davis. Tom was a familiar figure at Irish music events for over 50 years since the 1960s, recording music, song and conversation at fleadhs, concerts and private houses. His recording equipment was high quality and over these years he amassed thousands of tapes featuring both well known figures and lesser known musicians and singers. Tom’s widow Eleanor has generously donated Tom’s large collection to ITMA, where work has commenced on exploring and cataloging what is an invaluable resource for the Irish music community. This playlist just offers a glimpse of the breath and quality that Tom’s life’s work has made to Irish music.  – Pádraic

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

Tá na sleachta ceoil seo – foinn traidisiúnta rince agus foinn mhalla a bhí á seinm roimh aimsir an Ghorta – le cloisint thuas leis an bpíobaire uilleann agus an craoltóir raidió aitheanta Peter Browne. Tagann na foinn as bailiúchán mór ceoil a chuir an Canónach James Goodman i dtoll a chéile ar phár sna 1860í. Píobaire uilleann oilte ab ea Goodman, ministir de chuid Eaglais na hÉireann agus ollamh le Gaeilge i gColáiste na Trionóide BÁC, mar a mhaireann a lámhscríbhinní. D’fhoilsigh Taisce Cheol Dúchais Éireann os cionn 500 píosa traidisiúnta astu i 1998 mar Tunes of the Munster Pipers (TMP), curtha in eagar ag Hugh Shields; tá imleabhar eile d’fhoinn ón mbailiúchán, an t-imleabhar deireanach, curtha in eagar ag Hugh agus Lisa Shields, le fáil ó siopa ITMA.

Sheinn Peter Browne na píosaí seo don chéad uair i Márta 2009 mar léaráidi do léacht ‘An tUrramach James Goodman (1828–96): Fear Eaglasta, Ceoltóir agus Bailitheoir Ceoil’ a thug Nicholas Carolan, Stiúrthóir Thaisce Cheol Dúchais Éireann, mar léacht oscailte na sraithe ‘Foinn agus Focail’. Ba é an daicheadú sraith é de Léachtaí Cholm Cille, a eagraíonn Scoil an Léinn Cheiltigh in Ollscoil na hÉireann, Maigh Nuad, chuile bhliain. Ba iad na cainteóirí eile, ar théamaí a bhain leis an 18ú agus an 19ú haois, Patrick F. Devine ar cheoltóirí Éireannacha i gcomhthéasc Eorpach, Úna Uí Chuinn ar an mbailitheoir amhrán Pádraig Ó Loinsigh, Lesa Ní Mhunghaile ar an údar agus aistritheoir amhrán Charlotte Brooke, Proinsias Ó Drisceoil ar an bhfoilsitheoir amhrán agus ceoil Seán Ó Dálaigh, Deirdre Ní Chonghaile ar lámhscribhinní ceoil a bhreac George Petrie agus Eoghan Ó Comhraí in Árainn, Domhnall Uilleam Stiúbhart ar an mbailitheoir Albanach amhrán Alasdair MacGilleMhícheil, and Ruairí Ó hUiginn ar an mbailiúchán amhrán Amhráin Chlainne Gaedheal a foilsíodh i 1905 ag Mícheál agus Tomás Ó Máille as Gaillimh.

Seinneadh na sleachta seo arís le Peter Browne agus taifeadadh iad i stiúideo na Taisce le Danny Diamond ar 2 Márta 2010, agus do chéad-foilsíodh iad ar an Idirlíon ar 26 Márta nuair a bhí leabhar léachtaí 2009 Foinn agus Focail: Léachtaí Cholm Cille XL á fhoilsiú in Ollscoil Mhaigh Nuad, oíche oscailte an chéad sraith is daichead de Léachtaí Cholm Cille. Tá an t-imleabhar curtha in eagar ag an Ollamh Ruairí Ó hUiginn, agus foilsithe ag An Sagart, Maigh Nuad (162 lgh., ISSN 0791 8658, ISBN 1 9033896 60 6). Tá sé le fáil díreach ó Scoil an Léinn Cheiltigh, Ollscoil na hÉireann, Maigh Nuad, Co Chill Dara (nua.ghaeilge@nuim.ie).

The selection of pre-Famine traditional dance music and airs played above by the well known Dublin uilleann piper and radio broadcaster Peter Browne comes from the large music manuscript collection compiled in the 1860s by Canon James Goodman from the Dingle area of Irish-speaking west Co Kerry. Goodman was an expert uilleann piper, a clergyman of the Church of Ireland and professor of Irish in Trinity College Dublin, where his manuscripts are held. Over 500 Goodman tunes from oral sources were published by the Irish Traditional Music Archive in 1998 as Tunes of the Munster Pipers (TMP), edited by Hugh Shields; a second volume, edited by Hugh and Lisa Shields, was published in 2013 and is available from the ITMA shop.

Peter Browne first performed this selection in March 2009 to illustrate the opening lecture – ‘An tUrramach James Goodman (1828–96): Fear Eaglasta, Ceoltóir agus Bailitheoir Ceoil’ by ITMA Director Nicholas Carolan – of the fortieth series ‘Foinn agus Focail’ of Léachtaí Cholm Cille, an annual Irish-language lecture series organised by the Irish Department of the National University of Ireland Maynooth. Other contributors to the series, on 18th- and 19th-century themes, were Patrick F. Devine on Irish musicians in a European context, Úna Uí Chuinn on the song collector Patrick Lynch, Lesa Ní Mhunghaile on the author and song translator Charlotte Brooke, Proinsias Ó Drisceoil on the song and music publisher John O’Daly, Deirdre Ní Chonghaile on Aran islands music manuscripts by George Petrie and Eugene O’Curry, Domhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart on the Scottish song collector Alastair Carmichael, and Ruairí Ó hUiginn on the 1905-published Galway song collection Amhráin Chlainne Gaedheal.

The selections here were played by Peter Browne and recorded in the ITMA studio by Danny Diamond on 2 March 2010, and were first published on the Internet to coincide with the book publication of the 2009 lectures Foinn agus Focail: Léachtaí Cholm Cille XL in NUI Maynooth on 26 March, the opening night of the forty-first series of Léachtaí Cholm Cille. The volume, edited by Professor Ruairí Ó hUiginn, is published by An Sagart, Maigh Nuad (162 pp., ISSN 0791 8658, ISBN 1 9033896 60 6). It is to be had directly from Scoil an Léinn Cheiltigh, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Maigh Nuad, Co Kildare (nua.ghaeilge@nuim.ie).

With thanks to Peter Browne and Ruairí Ó hUiginn.

Nicholas Carolan & Danny Diamond, 1 April 2010