This is the Irish Traditional Music Archive’s contribution to Ireland’s National Music Day – Love: Live Music (21 June 2012). It is a session of music and song by off-duty staff members of the Archive, recorded ‘live’ on video in the ITMA basement studio at 73 Merrion Square, Dublin 2. It has been produced by ITMA Field-Recordings Officer Danny Diamond.

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 political events which led to the founding of the Irish state, especially the Easter Rising of 1916, are currently being widely celebrated in Ireland. These events gave rise to many nationalist songs, which were themselves in a line of descent from earlier such songs, most of them in the English language and dating from the 19th century. To understand the patriotic songs of the 1913−1923 period, it is necessary to refer to the earlier traditions from which they sprang.

The video presented here is of a lecture on the tradition of patriotic songs centred on Robert Emmet, the leader of an unsuccessful 1803 rebellion in Dublin and an icon for future generations. The songs belong to both literary and vernacular registers, are found in Ireland and Irish America, and reflect developing national political trends of more than a century.

The lecture was given by Nicholas Carolan, then director of ITMA, on 23 January 2003 in the Oak Room of the Mansion House, home of the Lord Mayor of Dublin and itself the venue for many political happenings of the 1916 decade, including the meeting of the first Dáil. It was illustrated by the singing of Dubliner Barry Gleeson, and was delivered at the invitation of the Dublin City Public Libraries as one of its annual Sir John T. Gilbert Commemorative Lecture series. City Councillor Dermot Lacey, then Lord Mayor, presided. The lecture was later given several times in Dublin and outside in the course of 2003, and the text was published in booklet form with an accompanying CD by the City Library service in 2004 and again in a collection of Gilbert lectures in 2009.

For a new related collection of song material from the Decade of Commemorations on this site, see Erin Remember 1916 & Other Songs from the Decade of Commemorations

With thanks for permissions to singer Barry Gleeson and Dr Máire Kennedy, Dublin City Library & Archive; and to Orla Henihan who recorded the original lecture on video.

Nicholas Carolan, Piaras Hoban, Maeve Gebruers and Treasa Harkin, 1 February 2016

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.

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.