Irish traditional music from the James Goodman manuscripts, Volume 2 / Hugh & Lisa Shields, eds.
Dublin: Irish Traditional Music Archive / Taisce Cheol Dúchais Éireann, 2013
James Goodman (1828─1896) from the Dingle area of West Kerry, a Canon of the Church of Ireland, Professor of Irish in Trinity College Dublin, and an accomplished performer on the Irish or uilleann pipes, compiled a highly important manuscript collection of Irish traditional music in the 1860s. Drawn to a great extent from the oral tradition of Munster, and partly from other manuscripts and printed sources, a book edition of the collection Tunes of the Munster Pipers has now been published for the first time, by the Irish Traditional Music Archive, in two volumes, edited by Hugh and Lisa Shields.
The first volume of the edition contains 515 song airs and dance tunes, and the second volume 536 ─ a total of 1,051 melodies in all.
The volumes contain all the melodies which Goodman himself noted down from the pipers and other performers of his native province, and those melodies not now otherwise available which he drew from manuscripts belonging to his musical colleagues. The tunes in the Goodman manuscripts which he copied from printed sources have been excluded. The edition provides musicians and scholars of the present day with a unique body of Irish music from the south-west region and gives unrivalled insights into the traditional music and song of Irish-speaking pre-Famine Ireland.
The edition also contains essays on Goodman’s life and career, and on his collection, based on new research. It is accompanied by a substantial online index of research information on the whole Goodman collection. Both volumes are available to purchase from the ITMA shop.
Dr Hugh Shields (1929─2008), Fellow Emeritus of Trinity College Dublin and former Senior Lecturer in French in the college, collected and studied traditional music from the 1950s, especially in Ireland and with particular emphasis on Ulster. He published many articles and sound recordings on the subject, and his Shamrock, Rose and Thistle: Folk Singing in North Derry (1981) and Narrative Singing in Ireland: Lays, Ballads, Come-All-Yes and Other Songs (1993) are standard works. Lisa Shields, his wife and a player of concertina and uilleann pipes, is a graduate in modern languages from TCD. She is the former Librarian of the Irish Meteorological Service.
The interactive scores from the book have been divided into two notated collections, each featuring c. 250 tunes.
Nicholas Carolan, Lisa Shields, Treasa Harkin, & Jackie Small, 12 April 2015
Irish traditional music from the James Goodman manuscripts, Volume 1 / Dr Hugh Shields, ed.
Dublin: Irish Traditional Music Archive / Taisce Cheol Dúchais Éireann, 1998
James Goodman (1828─1896) from the Dingle area of West Kerry, a Canon of the Church of Ireland, Professor of Irish in Trinity College Dublin, and an accomplished performer on the Irish or uilleann pipes, compiled a highly important manuscript collection of Irish traditional music in the 1860s. Drawn to a great extent from the oral tradition of Munster, and partly from other manuscripts and printed sources, a book edition of the collection Tunes of the Munster Pipers has now been published for the first time, by the Irish Traditional Music Archive, in two volumes, edited by Hugh and Lisa Shields.
The first volume of the edition contains 515 song airs and dance tunes, and the second volume 536 ─ a total of 1,051 melodies in all.
The volumes contain all the melodies which Goodman himself noted down from the pipers and other performers of his native province, and those melodies not now otherwise available which he drew from manuscripts belonging to his musical colleagues. The tunes in the Goodman manuscripts which he copied from printed sources have been excluded. The edition provides musicians and scholars of the present day with a unique body of Irish music from the south-west region and gives unrivalled insights into the traditional music and song of Irish-speaking pre-Famine Ireland.
The edition also contains essays on Goodman’s life and career, and on his collection, based on new research. It is accompanied by a substantial online index of research information on the whole Goodman collection. Both volumes are available to purchase from the ITMA shop.
Dr Hugh Shields (1929─2008), Fellow Emeritus of Trinity College Dublin and former Senior Lecturer in French in the college, collected and studied traditional music from the 1950s, especially in Ireland and with particular emphasis on Ulster. He published many articles and sound recordings on the subject, and his Shamrock, Rose and Thistle: Folk Singing in North Derry (1981) and Narrative Singing in Ireland: Lays, Ballads, Come-All-Yes and Other Songs (1993) are standard works. Lisa Shields, his wife and a player of concertina and uilleann pipes, is a graduate in modern languages from TCD. She is the former Librarian of the Irish Meteorological Service.
The interactive scores from the book have been divided into two notated collections, each featuring c. 250 tunes.
Nicholas Carolan, Lisa Shields, Treasa Harkin, & Jackie Small, 12 April 2012
Irish traditional music from the James Goodman manuscripts, Volume 2 / Hugh & Lisa Shields, eds.
Dublin: Irish Traditional Music Archive / Taisce Cheol Dúchais Éireann, 2013
James Goodman (1828─1896) from the Dingle area of West Kerry, a Canon of the Church of Ireland, Professor of Irish in Trinity College Dublin, and an accomplished performer on the Irish or uilleann pipes, compiled a highly important manuscript collection of Irish traditional music in the 1860s. Drawn to a great extent from the oral tradition of Munster, and partly from other manuscripts and printed sources, a book edition of the collection Tunes of the Munster Pipers has now been published for the first time, by the Irish Traditional Music Archive, in two volumes, edited by Hugh and Lisa Shields.
The first volume of the edition contains 515 song airs and dance tunes, and the second volume 536 ─ a total of 1,051 melodies in all.
The volumes contain all the melodies which Goodman himself noted down from the pipers and other performers of his native province, and those melodies not now otherwise available which he drew from manuscripts belonging to his musical colleagues. The tunes in the Goodman manuscripts which he copied from printed sources have been excluded. The edition provides musicians and scholars of the present day with a unique body of Irish music from the south-west region and gives unrivalled insights into the traditional music and song of Irish-speaking pre-Famine Ireland.
The edition also contains essays on Goodman’s life and career, and on his collection, based on new research. It is accompanied by a substantial online index of research information on the whole Goodman collection. Both volumes are available to purchase from the ITMA shop.
Dr Hugh Shields (1929─2008), Fellow Emeritus of Trinity College Dublin and former Senior Lecturer in French in the college, collected and studied traditional music from the 1950s, especially in Ireland and with particular emphasis on Ulster. He published many articles and sound recordings on the subject, and his Shamrock, Rose and Thistle: Folk Singing in North Derry (1981) and Narrative Singing in Ireland: Lays, Ballads, Come-All-Yes and Other Songs (1993) are standard works. Lisa Shields, his wife and a player of concertina and uilleann pipes, is a graduate in modern languages from TCD. She is the former Librarian of the Irish Meteorological Service.
The interactive scores from the book have been divided into two notated collections, each featuring c. 250 tunes.
Nicholas Carolan, Lisa Shields, Treasa Harkin, & Jackie Small, 12 April 2015
Irish traditional music from the James Goodman manuscripts, Volume 1 / Dr Hugh Shields, ed.
Dublin: Irish Traditional Music Archive / Taisce Cheol Dúchais Éireann, 1998
James Goodman (1828─1896) from the Dingle area of West Kerry, a Canon of the Church of Ireland, Professor of Irish in Trinity College Dublin, and an accomplished performer on the Irish or uilleann pipes, compiled a highly important manuscript collection of Irish traditional music in the 1860s. Drawn to a great extent from the oral tradition of Munster, and partly from other manuscripts and printed sources, a book edition of the collection Tunes of the Munster Pipers has now been published for the first time, by the Irish Traditional Music Archive, in two volumes, edited by Hugh and Lisa Shields.
The first volume of the edition contains 515 song airs and dance tunes, and the second volume 536 ─ a total of 1,051 melodies in all.
The volumes contain all the melodies which Goodman himself noted down from the pipers and other performers of his native province, and those melodies not now otherwise available which he drew from manuscripts belonging to his musical colleagues. The tunes in the Goodman manuscripts which he copied from printed sources have been excluded. The edition provides musicians and scholars of the present day with a unique body of Irish music from the south-west region and gives unrivalled insights into the traditional music and song of Irish-speaking pre-Famine Ireland.
The edition also contains essays on Goodman’s life and career, and on his collection, based on new research. It is accompanied by a substantial online index of research information on the whole Goodman collection. Both volumes are available to purchase from the ITMA shop.
Dr Hugh Shields (1929─2008), Fellow Emeritus of Trinity College Dublin and former Senior Lecturer in French in the college, collected and studied traditional music from the 1950s, especially in Ireland and with particular emphasis on Ulster. He published many articles and sound recordings on the subject, and his Shamrock, Rose and Thistle: Folk Singing in North Derry (1981) and Narrative Singing in Ireland: Lays, Ballads, Come-All-Yes and Other Songs (1993) are standard works. Lisa Shields, his wife and a player of concertina and uilleann pipes, is a graduate in modern languages from TCD. She is the former Librarian of the Irish Meteorological Service.
The interactive scores from the book have been divided into two notated collections, each featuring c. 250 tunes.
Nicholas Carolan, Lisa Shields, Treasa Harkin, & Jackie Small, 12 April 2012
Canon James Goodman, clergyman, Irish-language scholar, and music collector, was born 22 September 1828 at Ballyameen near Dingle, Co. Kerry, second son among five sons and four daughters of Thomas Chute Goodman, clergyman, and Mary Goodman (née Gorham). Brought up on a farm where his family had a good relationship with their catholic neighbours, James grew up bilingual and developed a love of traditional music and song. He entered TCD in July 1846, won awards in Irish and Hebrew, and graduated BA (1851) and MA (1871). He was ordained a deacon in Limerick (12 October 1851) and a priest in Cork (22 May 1853). His first curacy was in the parish of Creagh, Co. Cork, where he began working in 1852 under the Irish Church Missionary Society. He seems to have stayed there until 1858, though he may have also spent some time during this period working in Dunurlin parish, Co. Kerry, where his father was rector. Between 1858 and 1867 he was a curate in Killaconenagh parish on the Beara peninsula, Co. Cork, residing in Ardgroom. In February 1867 he was made vicar of Abbeystrewry parish in Skibbereen, Co. Cork. In 1875 he was made a canon and prebend of Island in the diocese of Ross. He was appointed professor of Irish in TCD in 1879 but was able to continue as vicar in Abbeystrewry as his residency in Dublin was required only part of the year. He retained both positions until his death. He was also a member of the university’s senate during his tenure at Trinity.
Elected to the council of the Ossianic Society in 1853, he had planned to publish an edition of ‘Cath Fionntrágha’, but the demise of the society prevented this and, perhaps having lost some of his enthusiasm for the old literature, he devoted most of his energy to traditional music thereafter. In 1854 he published An duanaire Diadha, a selection of psalms and hymns for the use of Irish-speaking congregations, containing eight pieces he had composed himself. He wrote some original verse in Irish and translated the Old Irish poem ‘St Patrick’s Breastplate’ into the modern language. He also collaborated with James E. H. Murphy, his successor as professor of Irish in TCD, in translating St Luke’s gospel into Irish. This resulted in An soisgéal do réir Naoimh Lúcais (1886). By 1866 he had compiled an impressive manuscript collection of some 2,000 melodies, mostly traditional Irish in content. It comprised both tunes taken down by himself and also music drawn from other manuscripts and printed sources. His principal source was a piper, Tom Kennedy. The collection has been housed in TCD since his death. The work of editing it was undertaken by Hugh Shields, the first portion being published in 1998 as Tunes of the Munster pipers.
Goodman was also an accomplished player of the flute and uilleann pipes, and entertained, among others, John Pentland Mahaffy (qv) in his rooms in TCD. He died at his residence in Skibbereen, 18 January 1896, and was buried in the family vault at nearby Creagh. He married (1852) Charlotte, daughter of Joseph King, who lived in Ventry parish; they had three sons. An arched gateway bearing an inscription to his memory was erected by parishioners at Abbeystrewry church, which he had helped rebuild a few years earlier.
Source: Dictionary of Irish Biography https://www.dib.ie/
Supplementary online resources for Tunes of the Munster pipers 2: Irish traditional music from the James Goodman manuscripts, Volume 2 / Hugh and Lisa Shields, eds. James Goodman (1828–1896), a native of Dingle, Co. Kerry, was a canon of the Church of Ireland and Professor of Irish in Trinity College Dublin. However he is now chiefly known as the compiler of an outstanding manuscript collection of more than 2,300 tunes held in the Library of the college.
The tunes were partly ‘taken down by myself as I heard them played by irish pipers &c.’ and partly drawn by him from manuscript and printed sources. Goodman grew up in an Irish-speaking environment, sang and danced, is said to have played the flute, and later became an accomplished player of the Irish, or uilleann, pipes. His music collection was completed in the 1860s when he was ministering in Ardgroom in west Cork.
The first volume of this publication, edited by Hugh Shields in 1998, contained over 500 tunes marked by Goodman with a ‘K’, indicating tunes obtained from ‘Munster pipers &c.’.
This second volume of the edition contains a further selection of over 500 Goodman tunes. It includes all other Goodman tunes from oral sources, along with unpublished melodies from manuscripts to which he had access; it omits those copied from printed sources. It also includes extensive documentation and indexes covering both volumes.
It is accompanied by a substantial online index (see below for pdf downloads and html files) of all the 2,300+ tunes in the four volumes of the Goodman music manuscript collection. Each title is individually annotated with information about its musical structure and with references, where appropriate, to related items in print, in current circulation, or in other Goodman manuscripts.
ITMA would like to acknowledge the invaluable input of Lisa Shields in compiling and maintaining these resources.
ITMA would also like to acknowledge the input of many others including Fr John Quinn, Dr Áine Heneghan, Rebecca Epstein-Boley and MIDAS (Michigan Institute for Data Science) at the University of Michigan.
Version 1.7 as of March 2022 replacing v. 1.5 of May 2020)
PDF download HTML file Excel Spreadsheet
Version 1.6 as of March 2022 (replacing version 1.5 of April 2020)
The hyperlinks to related online publications have been checked and updated.
Version 1.1 as at 15 June 2015
Only page 5 and hyperlinks updated
