ITMA — People

John ‘Twin’ McNamara was born in Dooagh, Achill Island on 7th June 1935 and is one of Achill’s most important historians, folklorists and collector of songs, poetry and stories associated with Achill and its connections to significant aspects of our local and national cultural heritage.

Garech a Brún / Browne (1939–2018), famously a member of the Guinness brewing dynasty, came to Irish music in the 1950s after teenage years spent in England. After studying the uilleann pipes with Leo Rowsome in Dublin, he co-founded and financed the record company Claddagh Records in 1959. Garech went on to issue many classic recordings of Irish traditional music, and to open Claddagh retail outlets and a distribution arm. The Claddagh catalogue now runs to over 100 individual recordings of the music, all of a high standard. Claddagh is best known internationally for the eleven early recordings of The Chieftains, whose albums first were issued by the label. They became major contributors to the twentieth-century globalisation of Irish traditional music. In his Irish home at Luggala, Co. Wicklow, Garech held court over the years for a stream of international artists and performers, including many Irish traditional musicians. He also served on the ITMA Board.

Cormac is concertina player from the west Kerry Gaeltacht and plays 13 concertinas ranging from bass to piccolo register.. The music on his acclaimed debut album and his latest solo work, entitled ‘B’ are central to the award winning show Mám (directed by Micheál Keegan Dolan) and to Pat Collins’ film, ‘The Dance’. He performs with musicians Liam O Connor, Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, Martin Hayes and Liam Ó Maonlaí, Rushad Eggleston (cello), Lisa O Neill and Ye Vagabonds and has recorded with artists including Lankum, Stephen James Smith, Ré, Jack Talty, Ye Vagabonds and Lisa O’Neill. He is the founder of Airt, a residential school in West-Kerry, the award winning Tunes in the Church live series in Galway, and an outdoor concert series from his campervan, the ‘Beauty’. Cormac trawled through the archives to explore and learn more about the Jew’s harp as part of his Drawing from the Well.

Mary Bergin is a whistle player from Shankill, Co. Dublin. Her mother played fiddle, her father melodeon. She picked up the whistle at nine, having heard Willie Clancy play in an Oireachtas concert in Dublin.. She picked up the whistle at nine, having heard Willie Clancy play in an Oireachtas concert in Dublin. Influenced by visiting musicians (Kathleen Harrington, Paddy Hill and Elizabeth Crotty in particular), and by local and fleadh sessions in the 1960s (in Blackrock with her harper sister Antoinette, fiddlers Joe Liddy and Sean O’Dwyer); whistle player Terry Horan also informed her playing. She played in the Claremen’s Club in Church Street, Dublin and the Thomas Street Pipers’ Club sessions, and learned too from observation of such as singer Nioclás Tóibín in Ring and Willie Clancy in Miltown Malbay while on family holidays.

She took part in CCÉ tours of Britain with, among others, Liam O’Flynn and Matt Molloy, and in the USA with such as Séamus Begley, Joe Burke and James Kelly. She worked for Radio Éireann in Henry St., Dublin, then CCÉ in Monkstown before moving to Spiddal where she now teaches the whistle. She played with the Green Linnet Céilí Band (Dublin: Mick Hand, flute, Tommy Peoples and Liam Rowsome, fiddles, Johnny McMahon, accordion), with Éamon de Buitléar’s Ceoltóirí Laighean, and for a time with De Dannan. She has also toured with her sister Antoinette, who performs with whistle and uilleann pipes player Joe McKenna. She has played much with bouzouki player Alec Finn, and now tours with the group Dordán.

Brightly ornamented but uncluttered, her playing is distinctive with a crisp articulation, and was the role model for two decades of whistle players. Her first solo album, Feadóga Stáin, in 1979, is still definitive; Feadóga Stáin 2 came in 1989, and she has recorded several albums with Dordán. In 2000 she was awarded TG4’s Gradam Ceoil for Traditional Musician of the year.

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.

Breathnach, Breandán, author, collector, and musician, was born 1 April 1912 in Hamilton St., Dublin, elder of two sons and three daughters of Patrick Walsh (d. 1980), silk weaver, and Julia Walsh (née Parker) (d. 1927). Educated at Francis St. national school, he obtained a Dublin corporation scholarship to attend Synge St. CBS, Dublin, where he completed the leaving certificate. After brief spells in other jobs he joined the civil service, spending time in the departments of agriculture, finance, posts and telegraphs, and education. An interest in music was fostered by his father and his uncle Joe Breathnach. The uilleann pipes were his instrument of choice and he was a founder and first chairman (1968–85) of Na Piobairí Uilleann.

He was a close friend of the pipers Séamus Ennis and Willie Clancy, becoming heavily involved in the Willie Clancy summer school. In 1970 he was a founder of the Folk Music Society of Ireland. Always unafraid of voicing criticism, he had become disaffected from Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann. Most renowned as a music writer and collector, he founded (1963) and edited the journal Ceol, which appeared sporadically till 1986. He was also for a time editor of An Piobaire and coeditor of the Folk Music Journal. He wrote Folk music and dances of Ireland (1971), and his magnificent collection Ceol rince na hÉireann (1963) was followed by supplementary volumes (1976, 1985).

In 1964 he joined the Department of Education, becoming a professional collector of traditional music. After much agitation on his part a national archive of Irish folk music was set up under the auspices of the department in 1972. Two years later the archive was transferred to the department of Irish folklore at UCD, where he became director of Irish folk music, a position he held until retiring (1977). During a busy retirement he lectured in TCD and was appointed to the Arts Council. He died in Dublin 6 November 1985.

He married (1943) Lena Donnellan, civil servant, of Tullagh, Co. Clare. They had five daughters: the second, Niamh, was minister for education 1992–7. His papers are at the Irish Traditional Music Archive, 63 Merrion Square, Dublin 2. His Ceol agus rince na hÉireann (1989) was published posthumously.

Source: Dictionary of Irish Biography https://www.dib.ie/

The greatest number of Irish songs ever published, over 1,000 in all, was collected, researched, edited and set to music by An tAthair Pádruig Breathnach / Fr Patrick A. Walsh (1848–1930), a Vincentian Catholic priest and an active cultural nationalist who is almost now a forgotten figure. . Published at politically significant times from 1904 to 1926, Breathnach’s songbooks influenced nationalist cultural thinking during the period, providing material for the de-anglicisation programme of the Gaelic League, disseminating patriotic songs in English during the War of Independence, and making bilingual song provision for schools as part of the nation-building of the new state.

Some 470 of these songs are in Irish and 530 in English. Drawn from oral, manuscript and printed sources, they were published in a sequence of cheap popular songsters and songbooks mainly by the Dublin firm of Browne & Nolan. Every song text was set to a melody in tonic solfa. Sales of these publications ran into the tens of thousands, and they would have a lasting influence on the oral tradition of both languages.

Pádruig Breathnach was born during the Famine in a largely Irish-speaking district near Carrick-on-Suir, Co Waterford. Having been educated locally and in the Catholic seminary of Maynooth, Co. Kildare, he was ordained a priest about 1873; most of his ministry was carried out in the cities of Cork and Dublin. He was interested in music and song from his youth, and, as an early enthusiast for the preservation and revival of the Irish language, he joined several Irish-language organisations before becoming a member of the new Gaelic League in 1893. As a young priest in Cork, he collected songs in Irish from his parishioners and on holidays in west Cork. More than 150 Irish-language songs in his collections, words and music, were collected in Cork and Waterford by himself or by his close associate Áine Ní Raghallaigh (1868–1942) of Macroom, a Gaelic League singing teacher.

In the early 1900s, when he himself was in his fifties, Breathnach was persuaded to begin publishing songs in Irish in penny songsters for schoolchildren. The success of his efforts led him to continue with similar songsters aimed at members of the growing Irish-language revival. The songsters were eventually collected into book form in 1913, and he went on to produce a series of further Irish-language songbooks for over a decade. Many of their songs were new, insofar as Breathnach selected verses by various authors and set them to music collected by himself or chosen by him from the published collections of Irish melody. Breathnach was also aware of the national value of the English-language songs of Ireland and by 1915 he had begun the publication of these songs, again in penny songster form and eventually in a hardback series of songbooks. His publishers advertised these as containing over 1,300 pages of song.

By the end of the eighteenth century, harping in Ireland was at a very low ebb and the ancient tradition on the brink of collapse. Edward Bunting (1773–1843) – music collector, publisher, editor, organist – is credited with saving the music of the Irish harp for posterity at a time when it was in danger of permanent loss. An Armagh born organist who was employed to notate the music played at the 1792 Belfast Harp Festival. There he lived with the McCracken family and associated with many of the members of the United Irish Society who had initiated the event. Bunting was so taken by the group of ageing harpers at the festival that he subsequently chose to devote a large proportion of his time to the collection and publication of Irish music. He toured Mayo in 1792 with Richard Kirwan, founder of the Royal Irish Academy, collecting a number of airs. In the same year he also gathered material in the counties Derry and Tyrone, visiting the harper Denis Hempson at his home in Magilligan. Bunting met Arthur O’Neill in Newry late in 1792 and visited Denis Hempson and Dónal Black in 1795 or 1796. His first publication appeared in 1796 with sixty-six tunes. ‘fieldwork’.

Bunting was the first Irish collector that we know of to gather music from musicians ‘in the field’. He also had some impressive ideas about publication – planning to print Irish texts with accompanying tunes and English translations. To that end Patrick Lynch, an Irish scholar, accompanied him on his 1802 tour of Connacht. Bunting later employed James Cody to collect both music and texts in Ulster. Bunting’s plans to include the Gaelic texts were not successful, however, as the 1809 publication contained seventy-seven airs, twenty of which were accompanied by English texts. arrangement Also, in making piano arrangements of tunes for publication Bunting provided versions of the tunes that lacked authenticity in relation to their original repertoire. He was aiming his publications at a particular market – the amateur musicians among the middle and upper classes. Certainly the printed music would have been of little use to the musically non-literate traditional musicians and harpers who were his sources.

After 1809 Bunting does not appear to have undertaken any major tour or collection. Most of his time was now devoted to arranging tunes he had already collected or that he received from correspondents. His final collection was published in 1840 and contained 151 tunes plus an elaborate introduction. Bunting wished to revise and re-edit his two earlier volumes, but, due to ill health, did not manage to do so. He is buried in Mount St Jerome Cemetery in Dublin.

Source: Dictionary of Irish Biography https://www.dib.ie/

Joe Burke of Kilnadeema, Loughrea, Co Galway, will be forever remembered as one of the most influential accordion players of his time. His lifelong passion for Irish traditional music was infectious to anyone who had the good fortune to speak or play with him.

As well as being an outstanding traditional musician, he was extremely knowledgeable about all aspects of the music, its history and development. In addition to the release of many outstanding recordings, his long and productive career included performance, teaching, and the presenting of concerts and programmes on both radio and television.

Renowned for his humour and wit, Joe was excellent company.

Speaking to him on the phone earlier this week, the conversation ranged from Michael Coleman to Fritz Kreisler to Albert Einstein and we were even interrupted at one point by a barking Patsy Touhey —Joe’s pet dog!

Liam O’Connor, ITMA Director, February 2021

Ever generous, Joe in recent months worked with ITMA on making previously unreleased private recordings of Michael Coleman available to the public. His acetates were digitised, preserved and shared with the public on Valentine’s Day 2021. On the RTÉ Radio 1 Rolling Wave programme on 14 February, Joe spoke about his relief and excitement at having delivered on one of his final musical ambitions.

I have treasured these recordings all these years. The release of these highly rare recordings is a dream come true for me and I am very happy to be a part of it.

Joe Burke, February 2021

Jimmy Campbell, laoch mór an cheoil as Gleann na nGleanntaí i dTír Chonaill.

Rinne Jimmy, fear lách, cineálta, éacht thar na bearta ar son cheol traidisiúnta na tíre agus thug sé spreagadh faoi leith do cheoltóirí óga. Bhí sé mar phribhléid dúinn bheith ina chuideachta agus port a chasadh leis.

Jimmy Campbell, renowned fiddle player from Glenties, County Donegal.

Jimmy made an enormous contribution to traditional music, in particular his encouragement of the younger generation of musicians who met and played with him. To sit in his company, to speak with and play music alongside him was a privilege and an honour; he will never be forgotten.

This short video tribute to the late Jimmy Campbell is taken from “Na Cruacha”, a documentary produced and directed by Iarfhlaith Ó Domhnaill for Nemeton TV and TG4, February 2020.

Joe was born into a musical family in Geesala, County Mayo.. His grandfather and uncles played accordion and although he had no formal tuition on the instrument he picked it up. There was a lot of music in the locality when he was young and he got great encouragment from older musicians. He was influenced by the playing of Joe Cooley and Tony Mac Mahon, and plays a restored 1940s accordion to give him that same kind of sound.

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.

Liz Carroll, the Irish fiddler and composer, has been thinking lately of the path her musical life has taken. It’s been a road rich in traveling companions, with inspiration from stops along the way. And now, with Half Day Road, her duet album with guitarist and pianist Jake Charron, just released in 2019, and with a new book of tunes, Collected II, published in March of 2020, there are new horizons ahead.

Since she was 18, when she astounded the Celtic music world by winning the Senior All-Ireland Championship, Liz and her fiddle have been amazing audiences around the globe. She has been honored with many accolades, including a nomination for a 2010 Grammy, with John Doyle, for their duet album, Double Play. In April of 2011, Liz was awarded the Cumadóir TG4, the first American-born composer honored with Ireland’s most significant traditional music prize.

Liz’s recordings are in the majority her own compositions, and they have given her a stature equal to that of her playing. When you listen to a Liz album, you’re hearing the music of a composer celebrated for invigorating the traditional styles of Irish music. Her tunes have entered into the repertoire of Irish and Celtic performers throughout the world.

2016 saw the release of a new collaborative album, produced as companion music to an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago – “Ireland: Crossroads of Art and Design, 1690-1840 – The Music.” A mix of period music and new compositions by Liz, the other artists include Liz Knowles, Kieran O’Hare, Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill, and Catriona McKay. Daniel Neely of the Irish Echo praised it, saying:

“It is a breathtaking companion piece… a spectacular album. It features a beautiful mixture of old and new music from one of the most elite gatherings of musicians.”

Liz’s 2013 solo recording, On the Offbeat, is another collection of original compositions – of the 24 tunes on the album, 23 are hers. Produced by Seamus Egan of Solas, Offbeat has been greatly praised, including by Siobhan Long of The Irish Times:

“★★★★★ “… [a] magnificent collection of original, self-composed tunes. … a wide arc of a celebration of quirky, non-conformist rhythms, which revel as much in the powder-keg unpredictability of the Balkans as they do in the buoyant agility of the Sligo style.”
– read the full review here

Liz has published two books of her compositions. In 2010. Collected compiled the music that she began composing when just a child. Now in its second printing, Collected is what Liz’s fans and fellow musicians have been clamoring for – for years. And now in 2020, come the tunes composed since – 60 new jigs, reels, strathspeys and more!

It’s these tunes, as well as Liz’s vital performances on concert stages, television and radio, that have established her as one of traditional music’s most sought after performers. Neil Tesser of the Chicago Reader marvels that “her quicksilver lines can captivate violin admirers way beyond the bounds of Hibernia.” P.J. Curtis of the Irish American says that Liz “conjures up a dizzying mixture of the sweetest tones, the fastest runs, and the most dazzling display of musicianship imaginable.” One of Liz’s proudest concert moments was at the 1st American Congress of the Violin, hosted by Yehudi Menuhin.

In 1994, the National Endowment for the Arts awarded Liz a National Heritage Fellowship for her great influence on Irish music in America, as a performer and a composer. First Lady Hillary Clinton presented the award which bestows national recognition on artists of international stature.

Liz was born in Chicago, Illinois, of Irish parents, and is proud that she was awarded a fellowship in 2019 by the State of Illinois in Ethnic and Folk Arts.

(text from www.lizcarroll.com – Image by Marianne Mangan)

Born on the Falls Road, Belfast, in 1948 and reared in an Irish-speaking family, Ciaran was a prolific and highly regarded poet, prose writer and translator. He was the first director of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry in Queen’s University Belfast, 2004–2016, a member of Aosdána and a fellow of the Royal Society for Literature. His literary legacy includes fourteen volumes of poetry, beginning with The New Estate in 1976; a variety of highly original prose works, including The Star Factory (1997) and Shamrock Tea (2001), which centred on his Belfast experiences and imaginings; and prize-winning translations from Irish, Italian and other languages which included An Táin and Dante’s Inferno. In recent years he has become increasingly the subject of international academic studies. A further volume of his poetry was published in 2019.

Irish traditional music also played a central part in Ciaran’s life and work. Enamoured of the music since the revival of the 1960s and a player of the flute and tin whistle, he joined with musician friends in Belfast folk clubs and country sessions, especially with his wife, the fiddle player Deirdre Shannon (‘the ideal space for traditional music is a small back room… where practitioners and listeners can see each others faces’). From 1975 to 1998 he was officer for the traditional arts with the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. There he was responsible for such initiatives as an annual ‘Festival of Traditional Singing’ held in towns from Downpatrick to Portrush, a ‘You and Yours’ series of province-wide tours by groups of traditional singers and musicians, and a 1980s Ulster programme of archival field-recording. Arts Council publications produced on his watch included the traditional music ‘broadsheet’ Slow Air (1976–77) and sound recordings edited by Seán Corcoran: Here is a Health: Songs, Music and Stories of an Ulster Community (1986, collected by Corcoran), Harvest Home 1; Songs and Crack from West Tyrone (1991, collected by James Foley) and Harvest Home 2: It’s of My Rambles (1993, collected by Len Graham). With his professional approval the Irish Traditional Music Archive received its first financial grant from the Council in 1989, a funding relationship which has continued annually since. Traditional music was a frequent theme and source of inspiration in Ciaran’s poetry, and his reviews and articles on traditional music appeared over the decades in the Honest Ulsterman, Ulster Folk News, The Belfast Review and other periodicals; most recent are a series of reflections on Irish traditional music in The Journal of Music. But his most enduring traditional music publications are two unique books: the often-reprinted Pocket Guide to Irish Traditional Music (Belfast, 1986; Japanese edition, Tokyo, 1998), and Last Night’s Fun, (London, 1996 & 1997; New York, 1997; variously subtitled), his hallucinatory prose and poetry memoir of ecstatic contact with the music and musicians. He also served on the Board of ITMA.

WRITTEN BY Nicholas Carolan, 11 October 2019

Yvonne Casey is one of Co. Clareʼs most distinctive fiddle players. She grew up surrounded by the richness of Clare music and plays in a unique soulful style.. In the 1990ʼs Yvonne recorded two albums with The Ceili Bandits and they toured Europe and the USA. She also recorded her first solo CD in 2004. Since then, she has created her own music school in Clare and teaches and performs at various festivals at home, abroad and online.

Her recently released CD entitled “Croí” (Heart) includes many of her own new beautiful compositions as well as performances by Dermot Byrne, Eoin OʼNeill and Jon OʼConnell.

TG4 Young Musician of the Year for 2019, Conor is a button accordion, piano player and singer from Clarinbridge, Co. Galway. He hails from an area steeped in Irish music that produced legendary players like Joe Cooley and the late Joe Burke.. He cites many varied sources and inspirations like Cooley, Burke, Tony McMahon, Charlie Harris and pipers like Willie Clancy, Séamus Ennis and Seán McKiernan along with the great Sligo fiddlers from the early 20th century.
Conor has toured and performed extensively and is a regular at the summer schools at home and abroad. He represented Ireland at the World Expo in Dubai in 2021

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.

Steve Cooney is best known for his development of an influential style of guitar accompaniment to Irish dance music that he developed in West Kerry, and for which he won the National Entertainment Award with Séamus Begley in 1997.

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

I wasn’t born on a calm night so I got into music at an early age, and got my first melodeon when I was seven years old.. In my early teens, I used to play with the Seán Lynch Céilí Band, and one of the gigs was at a crossroads platform at Knocknacolon, about a mile outside Kanturk in north Cork. It was run by Bill Sullivan, a wonderful local man, who used to show us how to dance as well.

I got a lot of music from Jim Keeffe who played fiddle with us, and he had been a pupil of the great Pádraig O’Keeffe. So it was Sliabh Luachra all the way, and I learned to read that distinctive fiddle notation.

In 1974, I won the All-Ireland accordion contest in Listowel. But I don’t play the usual style. My instrument is in C#/D rather than B/C.

Back in the seventies, I started to play with Séamus Creagh, and we had some great times together, and made an album in 1977.

I’ve played with a few different groups, Buttons and Bows, De Dannan, Arcady, Patrick Street, and duets with Kevin Burke and Matt Cranitch. When people ask me why so many, I say because I’m cheap!

Down the years, I’ve been exposed to many different styles, but it’s the music of Sliabh Luachra that has had the greatest impression on me. So, I’ll carry on till I’m carried out, and I might be good yet!

Éamon de Buitléar was particularly noted since 1962 as an independent film-maker and author specialising in wildlife and environmental matters. A promoter of the Irish language in his many television programmes, he was a member of Seanad Éireann in the 1980s. He also served on the Board of ITMA.

Éamon was also a musician, on button accordion, mouth organ and bodhran, and was active in traditional music. With Seán Ó Riada and other musicians he was a founder-member of Ceoltóirí Chualann about 1960 and is to be heard on recordings of the group. After the death of Ó Riada he founded Ceoltóirí Laighean on the same model about 1972. The group issued two LPs The Crooked Road/ An Bóthar Cam (1973) agus The Star of Munster (1975); in 2010 they were reissued as a double CD Cnuas (Gael Linn CEFCD190). Amongst his music recordings is a film on the uilleann piper Séamus Ennis, Miles and Miles of Music (1975).

Bhí cáil air go háirithe ó 1962 mar scannánóir neamhspleách agus mar údar leabhar ar chúrsaí fiadhúlra agus comhshaoil. Chuir sé an Ghaeilge chun cinn ina chláracha iomadúla teilifíse, agus ba bhall de Sheanad Éireann é ins na 1980í. Freisin, chaith sé tamall ar Bord an Taisce.

Ceoltóir ab ea Éamon leis, a sheinn ar an mbosca ceoil, ar an orgán béil agus ar an mbodhrán, agus bhí sé gníomhach i gcúrsaí ceoil traidisiúnta. Ghlac sé páirt le Seán Ó Riada agus ceoltóirí eile i mbunú Cheoltóirí Chualann thart timpeall ar 1960, agus tá sé le clos ar roinnt d’fhadcheirníní an ghrúpa. Tar éis bhás an Riadaigh chuir sé an grúpa Ceoltóirí Laighean ar bun ar an múnla céanna timpeall ar 1972. D’eisigh siadsan dhá fhadcheirnín The Crooked Road/ An Bóthar Cam (1973) agus The Star of Munster (1975); i 2010 ath-eisíodh iad mar CD dúbailte Cnuas (Gael Linn CEFCD190). I measc na dtaifeadtaí ceoil a rinne sé, bhí scannán faoin bpíobaire uilleann Séamus Ennis, Miles and Miles of Music (1975).

Andy was born in Bridgnorth, Shropshire, but with his father’s employment, the family moved to different towns in England, before relocating to Belfast in 1957. In his junior years at school his ability in music had already been recognised with a school report recording at the age of 7, “Music – Good, a lovely voice”. A Christmas present of a mouth organ had relations commenting on his ability to play it, for as Andy himself said “There wasn’t a note of music in my family”. On to ‘big school’ and Andy, like many other teenagers, was influenced by the local music scene. He taught himself to play guitar and formed a band with several of his school friends. To quote Bill Morrison from his book Big Hand for the Band, “Dickson, A M, played a mighty impressive Flamenco tune on a Spanish guitar” and “an Echo Chamber that made his guitar-picking sound like Hank Marvin”.

After studying at Queen’s University, Belfast for a couple of years, Andy decided to take a gap year and headed to London. It wasn’t long before he was working as a session musician in various studios and busking the cinema queues. He also got involved in the London folk scene. The gap year became several years, and after travelling to Spain to learn more about Spanish music and culture he returned to London and took a job scheduling airline crews. It was during this time that he sustained a hand injury which severely curtailed his ability to play the guitar as he wished. He decided to return to Belfast to complete his degree.Before he returned, he got into conversation with a gentleman at a quay side, who remarked on his guitar case, and said that he had something that might interest him, went away and came back carrying what turned out to be a fiddle case. He handed it to Andy, said a few words and off he went. Andy had his first fiddle.

Now the 1970s, and back in Belfast, Andy was completing his degree in Social Anthropology at Queen’s and at the same time teaching himself to play the fiddle. His sources for tunes were many. He would spend hours in the university library pouring through old manuscripts, travelling the country to Fleadhanna and festivals, as well as attending local Belfast sessions in Pat’s Bar in Sailortown, the Old House in Albert Street off the Falls Road, and also sessions slightly further afield in Bangor. He quickly found a central place in Belfast’s growing folk and traditional music scene, which provided a cross-community haven for the open-minded, eccentric and creative in the divided city. During the 1970s traditional music in Belfast grew in popularity and the session scene expanded out to new venues including Tom Kelly’s in the Short Strand, The Rossa Club in West Belfast, and the Rotterdam Bar also in Sailortown, amongst others. This was the time that Andy began writing down the tunes that he had sourced and soon had several manuscript books filled. He didn’t have a tape recorder at that time and preferred to carry his ‘little black book’ and a pencil in his fiddle case. If there was a tune, or version of a tune that caught his attention, out would come the book and the tune would be notated, to be transferred later to the manuscript books.

Through the 1970s and into the 1980s Andy and many other Belfast musicians were going to sessions nearly every night of the week. Word of mouth soon had many visiting musicians coming to the sessions, from all parts of Ireland and further afield. Andy’s manuscript books were expanding rapidly. Traditional music was now being brought to a wider audience by way of concerts, festivals and folk clubs. During poet and musician Ciarán Carson’s tenure as Traditional Arts Officer with The Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Andy was often employed as a driver on Arts Council musical tours. Through these travels as well as his own musical adventures, Andy developed deep connections with musical communities in Counties Fermanagh, Leitrim, Sligo, and Clare, which would come to be major influences on his music, and, in time, on his compositions.

Séamus Ennis, musician, folklorist, singer, and broadcaster, was born 5 May 1919 in Jamestown Lodge, Finglas, Dublin, son of James Ennis, civil servant and warpiper from Dublin, and Mary Josephine Ennis (née McCabe) from Co. Monaghan. He had three sisters and two brothers. His father played the warpipes on the airwaves at the inauguration of radio broadcasting in Ireland in 1926. Séamus was educated at Glasnevin primary school, Belvedere College, and Coláiste Mhuire in Dublin, where he studied Irish and music. He left Coláiste Mhuire in 1936 and went to work in Colm Ó Lochlainn’s (qv) printing house ‘The Sign of the Three Candles’ in Fleet Street, Dublin, until 1942.

His job at the Three Candles was to write and fill in the musical notation for the numerous songs in the Ó Lochlainn publication Irish street ballads, one of the best collections of ballads in existence. There is an insight into the work he did in one barony in Clár amhrán Bhaile na hInse, published in 1976 by Ríonach Ní Fhlathartaigh. In the late 1930s and early 1940s he began travelling with his friend Kevin McCann to Mayo, Donegal, Kerry, west Cork, and the western islands off the coast of Scotland, collecting songs and tunes of dance. From 1942 to 1947 he was employed in this work by the Irish Folklore Commission, and was deployed mainly in Connemara. By 1947 he had a reputation as a collector of sean-nós (traditional style) songs and at the Golden Jubilee Oireachtas of that year he organised a session about the meaning of singing, which lasted three days. In autumn 1947 Radio Éireann (RÉ) employed Ennis and Seán Mac Réamoinn (1921–2007) as outside broadcasting officers to collect speech and music, mainly from Irish-speaking areas. They travelled around Ireland collecting song texts and airs, and also many dance tunes, such as reels, jigs, slip jigs, set dances and hornpipes. One of their first trips was to Peig Sayers’s (qv) house in Dún Chaoin, where they recorded sixty minutes of Peig’s seanchas (folklore, mythology, legends, stories, etc.) on discs; tape recorders were not yet available. At this time it was one of the biggest broadcasting ventures.

Ennis collected various eclectic materials in English and Irish for RÉ until 1951, when he left Ireland to work for the BBC Folk Music and Dialect Recording Scheme, assisting Brian George in promoting the successful BBC programme ‘As I roved out’. The programme achieved a listenership of 7 million during the 1950s. One fruit of Ennis’s long experience with Irish musicians was seen in the Irish record in the series ‘Columbia Folk’. He left the BBC in 1957 to work as an independent journalist and musician. He began to provide English translations for Irish songs and in 1962 he translated Peig Sayers’s 1939 work Machtnamh seanamhna into English under the title An old woman’s reflections.

He was in bad health from the 1960s and it seemed his lifestyle (involving travelling around the country in all weathers) was not helping. He began travelling with the Dubliners on tour, still collecting music. Hundreds of songs and tunes of his were lost in a fire in Lisdoonvarna on one of the tours. In 1968 he became a joint patron of the newly formed Na Píobairí Uilleann. He married (1952) Margaret Glynn, an air hostess, in Kerry; they had two children, Christopher and Catherine, and separated when their daughter was four. Apart from his music, Séamus had an extraordinary ear for language. In the Gaeltacht he could switch from one dialect to another with perfect ease; this facility extended even to Scotland. This and his easy manner made him the most successful collector of folklore in the Irish language. Most of his work in this field is in the folklore archives of UCD. He was a very private person and had all the detachment of an artist. He chose to live alone and though he had many friends his circle of intimates was quite small.

He was living in Naul, Co. Dublin, in a caravan beside his sister Ursula (‘Pixie’) when he died on 5 October 1982. He had christened their place ‘Easter Snow’; it was located opposite the graveyard where he is buried. In 1994 a plaque in his honour was erected on the site of the Ennis home in Finglas. A section of Jamestown Road, Finglas, was renamed ‘Séamus Ennis Road’ by John Gormley, lord mayor of Dublin, in October 1994. In 2000 the cultural centre of Fingal was named after him. There are various recordings of his music, the most important being 40 years of Irish piping.

Source: Dictionary of Irish Biography https://www.dib.ie/

Daoirí Farrell has been described by some of the biggest names in Irish music as one of most important singers to come out of Ireland in recent years.. After studying traditional music in a number of Irish colleges where he was introduced to the singing of Liam Weldon and subsequently working with many prominent Irish artists, Daoirí launched his own solo live career at Celtic Connections, in 2016. Later that year he released ‘True Born Irishman’ which won two BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards – he performed with a six piece line-up at the awards ceremony at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

He has since performed extensively internationally while his last recording ‘A Lifetime Of Happiness’ was produced by Dónal Lunny and released in 2019.

A native of Cahersiveen in Co Kerry, Seán’s outstanding recordings Ón dTalamh Amach and The Bonny Bunch of Roses along with his prolific performances since the 1970s portrayed a beautifully discerning, sensitive Irish artist. A talented, accomplished musician his rich, sonorous voice rightly earned him the TG4 Gradam Ceoil, Amhránaí na Bliana in 2006.

Frankie Gavin is a fiddle, flute and whistle player, born at Corrandulla, Co. Galway. His father played fiddle, his mother fiddle and concertina. Frankie began playing whistle at the age of four, fiddle at ten, encouraged by his brother Seán who played accordion. Together the family played for US president John F. Kennedy at Salthill in 1963. A junior All-Ireland winner on whistle and fiddle, he is self-taught on piano, pipes and accordion. He took up flute at fifteen, and shortly afterwards in 1974 founded the group De Dannan; he has been central to its influential music style and arrangements since. This he describes as ‘tightly percussive melody lines set against a flowing, contrapuntal background’.

Solo albums include Croch Suas É (1983) with flute, fiddle, tin whistle and accordion; Irlande (1994) live with Arty McGlynn and Aidan Coffey; Jigs and Jazz (1993) cd and video with Stéphane Grappelli; Omós do Joe Cooley (1986) with Paul Brock and Charlie Lennon; Traditional Music of Ireland (1977) with Alec Finn; Frankie Goes to Town; Island Wedding with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra. In 1996 he presented RTÉ’s Miltown Sessions traditional music series for television.

Ever innovative, Gavin has recorded with performers of many different genres of music, including gospel, blues, jazz and rock. He was awarded the (now TG4) AIB musician of the year award in 996 and an honorary Masters in Music by NUIG in 2009. His 2000 solo release Fiercely Traditional brought his music back to his roots, and with the band Hibernian Rhapsody – with singer Michelle Lally, accordionist Derek Hickey, guitarist Tim Edey and Carl Hession on keyboards he recorded The Full Score in 2008. In 2009 he toured under a new name as ‘Frankie Gavin’s De Dannan’ to the chagrin of original De Dannan bandmates.

I am from a small townland near Fintown, Co. Donegal. I received my first fiddle at Christmas of 2008 and I started taking lessons about a year later when I was roughly five years old. My first fiddle teacher was Denise Boyle from Glenties. I was greatly influenced by the late Jimmy Campbell and his son Peter and also got to know the late Vincent Campbell. They told me many stories about the Dohertys, a family of travelling tinsmiths and musicians who frequented this area and passed their tunes on.

The area I live in is steeped in traditional music, especially fiddle music. Our local pub, The Glen Tavern or ‘Dinny’s’ is the epicentre of music and culture. Sessions happen regularly and it is here I got to know other local musicians such as the Campbells, Tara Connaghan, Denise Boyle and Rónán Galvin to name but a few. I started giving fiddle lessons recently and hope to help spread the music and stories.

Fiona Gavin, December 2023

Amhránaí ar an sean-nós í Sarah Ghriallais as Muiceanach i nGaeltacht Chonamara. Bhuaigh sí Corn Uí Riada ag Oireachtas na Gaeilge i 1984, agus bronnadh TG4 Gradam Ceoil Amhránaí uirthi i 2022. Le dhá thaifeadadh déanta aici, is amhranaí í a bhfuil an-mheas uirthi ar fud an domhain.. Amhránaí ar an sean-nós í Sarah Ghriallais as Muiceanach i nGaeltacht Chonamara. Bhuaigh sí Corn Uí Riada ag Oireachtas na Gaeilge i 1984, agus bronnadh TG4 Gradam Ceoil Amhránaí uirthi i 2022. Le dhá thaifeadadh déanta aici, is amhranaí í a bhfuil an-mheas uirthi ar fud an domhain.

I come from St. Johnston, a small rural village on the banks of the river Foyle in Co. Donegal, an area steeped in music and with a very rich musical history.. I began playing at a very early age, being taught at various times by my father Eddie, Joe Cassidy, Tony McGranaghan and Patsy Molloy.

I have been greatly influenced by these people and indeed heavily by my uncle Tommy Peoples. People from the surrounding area like George Peoples, Paddy Douglas, John Douglas, Kathleen McGinley, Barney Martin, John Martin, Barney McAuley and Canon Cunnea. The place was absolutely full of musicians, playing all manner of musical genres and almost everyone was capable of reading and writing music.

I began composing music at the age of 17 when my first two tunes were written: the reels “George Peoples” and “Ciaran’s reel” – sometimes called “Joe Cassidy” and “George Peoples” respectively – long story!

Many other tunes followed. I don’t know exactly how many but probably more than 100 of varying quality and appeal. I’ve been very lucky to have composed some good tunes. Indeed, l know exactly how lucky I am in this regard and I thank God for that gift.

Some of these tunes were written many years ago and some as young as a few weeks old. Most of them I’ve only ever played for close friends and family and a lot of them are difficult to play and/or accompany. However, I do enjoy playing them myself and having played many of them over the years with the expert accompaniment provided by my great friend Dermot Toland, that enjoyment has been greatly amplified.

To those encountering these tunes on the ITMA website I hope you find some tunes you like and I wish you much enjoyment in the playing of them.

Fiddle player Paddy Glackin is from Dublin. His father, Tom, was from County Donegal and was a noted fiddler who had a significant influence on Paddy’s style. Paddy has also been inspired by John Doherty, the Donegal travelling fiddle player and by others such as John Kelly, Tommy Potts and Pádraig O’Keeffe. Paddy was senior all-Ireland champion fiddle player at Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann at age nineteen. He was a member of the traditional music group ‘Seachtar’ and then of ‘The Bothy Band’ in the 1970s. He was also a member of ‘Ceoltóirí Laighean’ recording two albums with them. Having spent some time as Traditional Music Officer with the Arts Council he moved to broadcasting with RTÉ. Although his preference is for solo playing he has joined forces with numerous musicians such as Paddy Keenan, Dónal Lunny, Robbie Hannan and Mícheál Ó Domhnaill, he has also recorded with John Cage and Jolyon Jackson. Paddy co-presents ‘Dúchas an Cheoil: The Scope of Irish Music’ at the annual Willie Clancy Summer School. His first solo album ‘Glackin: Ceol ar an bhFidil’ was released in 1977. He was the recipient of the TG4 Gradam Ceoil Musician of the Year award for 2022.

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/

Yeats, Gráinne (1925–2013), harpist, singer, teacher and historian, was born on 14 April 1925 in Dublin, the youngest child of Patrick Sarsfield (‘P. S.’) O’Hegarty (qv) and Wilhelmina (Mina) Rebecca (née Smyth). Both parents were steeped in the politics and traditional culture of Ireland: her father had been a member of the Supreme Council of the IRB and of Sinn Féin, and was secretary of the Department of Post and Telegraphs on the foundation of the state. Her mother, the daughter of a presbyterian minister from Co. Derry, was an active suffragist and member of Cumann na mBan, and the first female to graduate in science from Bedford College, London. Mina met P. S. whilst attending Irish classes in London, and they returned to Ireland where they lived most of their lives in Highfield House on Highfield Road in Rathgar, Dublin.

Gráinne, along with her older brother and sister, was raised bilingually through Irish and English, and their family holidays were spent in the Gaeltacht, where she heard traditional Irish music and songs. She attended Scoil Bhríghde, an Irish language primary school, and then went to Alexandra College in Milltown, Dublin, before going on to study at TCD. After graduating with a degree in history in 1947, she went on to study singing and piano at the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM) in Dublin. Although she considered singing to be her main interest, she excelled in both areas, receiving several prizes and scholarships such as the Vandeleur scholarship, the Joseph Robinson memorial prize and the Radio Éireann award in 1950 for both singing and piano. In 1949 she married the politician Michael Butler Yeats (qv), the only son of W. B. Yeats (qv).

About 1950, she developed her love of the harp after allegedly hearing the instrument played by the Abbey Theatre actress Joan O’Hara, sister of harper Mary O’Hara. She purchased a second-hand Scottish harp and was taught basic harp technique by Sheila Larchet Cuthbert and Mercedes Bolger. Together these three women played an important role in the revival and promotion of the Irish harp and, along with Elizabeth Hannon, founded Cairde na Cruite (‘Friends of the Harp’) in November 1960. The aim of the newly-founded society was ‘the restoration of the Irish harp, symbol of an ancient culture, to its place of honour.’ This came after a challenging decade for Irish harpists. In an interview given in 1981, Yeats lamented the lack of instruments, teachers and published music at that time. She noted that it was extremely difficult to find a good harp and that, even when an instrument was found, there was practically nothing to play.

Given the paucity of instruments and music, Yeats was forced to innovate. In 1959 she collaborated with a vocal ensemble called the Dowland Consort which brought her into contact with Irish composers such as Brian Boydell (qv) and Joseph Groocock, who composed or arranged music for her. In turn they were exposed to the music of traditional harpers such as Turlough Carolan (qv) and Cornelius Lyons, and this opened new avenues for collaboration.

In the early 1960s Yeats approached Sean Ó Riada (qv) to compose harp music for her and he agreed, but only on condition that she source a traditional wire-strung harp. Modern harps were gut-strung and Ó Riada disliked their sound so much that when he was putting together the ensemble group Ceoltóirí Chualann, he had them substituted with harpsichords. Yeats was now confronted with a dilemma. If she wished to move Irish harp music forward she needed to look to the past, to the traditional wire-strung harps that had died out in the early nineteenth century. She initially approached an aeronautics designer and a furniture maker, both of whom let her down. Finally, she made contact with Jay Witcher, an American harp-maker, who made for her a replica of a seventeenth-century style Sirr harp. She then had to learn to play the instrument, declaring it ‘fiendish’ at one stage. Nonetheless, she mastered the instrument and, in doing so, revolutionised Irish harp music. Together with Mercedes Bolger she founded Irish harp schools with standardised courses and techniques throughout Ireland. In 1975 Yeats was one of the contributors to Sheila Larchet Cuthbert’s seminal text The Irish harp book, which put into print for the first time sheet music suitable for the Irish harp. Through her marriage to Michael Butler Yeats, she also had unprecedented access to her father-in-law’s works, and she commissioned and performed new works specifically based upon his texts and poems.

As a performer Yeats travelled widely, touring in Europe, Russia, India, Japan and the US. She debuted in London in 1966, and in the same year won the Harriet Cohen International Award for solo instruments. By 1969 she had appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show in the US, confirming her international standing. Mary Kenny, in an article for the Irish Press, named her amongst Ireland’s twenty-five most influential women, describing her as ‘one of Ireland’s best cultured ambassadors’ (Ir. Press, 23 March 1971). In 1993 Yeats and Máire Ní Chathasaigh were the first to perform on the Irish harp at the World Harp Congress, held in Copenhagen that year.

However, Yeats’s contribution to Irish harping was not confined to performance and teaching. She also wrote extensively on the subject, using her TCD history background to write texts such as The harp of Ireland: The Belfast harpers’ festival (1992), as well as entries for Carolan and other Irish harpers in the New Grove dictionary of music and musicians (1980–).

In addition to publishing books and articles on the harp, Yeats also produced much recorded music. Her first album, Irish folk songs, was released in 1962 and was well received, but it is her album Féile na gCruitirí Béal Feirste 1792 (The Belfast Harpers’ Festival 1792) that is considered her seminal work. First produced in 1980 as a double LP, it was re-issued by Gael Linn in 1992 as a double CD featuring forty-two tracks, many of them new, to coincide with the publication of her book on the same subject. After more than fifty years reviving and revolutionising the music and instruments of Irish harping, Yeats crowned a lifetime of achievement when, as president of Cairde na Cruite, she oversaw Ireland hosting the World Harp Congress for the first time.

Gráinne Yeats died on 18 April 2013 in Dublin and was buried in Shanganagh cemetery. In a filmed interview with singer Mairéid Sullivan in October 2000 she expressed one of her few regrets: never hearing the harp as it might have been played in the halls of the great Gaelic lords. ‘I would just sit in the back with my video recorder, and tape everything. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? The only trouble with that is you might be terribly disappointed!’

Sources

Ir. Press, 23 March 1971; Gráinne Yeats, ‘The rediscovery of Carolan’ in Bernard Harris and Grattan Freyer (eds), Integrating tradition: the achievement of Séan Ó Riada (1981); Ir. Times, 27 Apr. 2013; Sligo Champion, 7 May 2013; Harry White and Barra Boydell (eds), Encyclopaedia of music in Ireland (2013); Teresa O’Donnell, ‘Gráinne Yeats: a modern day bard remembered’, American Harp Journal (June, 2014)

PUBLISHING INFORMATION

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3318/dib.010057.v1

Originally published December 2018 as part of the Dictionary of Irish Biography

Last revised December 2018

Aoife is a flute/fiddle player and singer from Dingle who holds a PhD in Folklore/Ethnomusicology (Dingle Wren & European Carnival Cultures).. She lectures in Folklore/Béaloideas at the
Folklore Department, UCC and is currently working on her third solo album. A regular contributor to radio and television, Aoife works and publishes in both Irish and English and was appointed
to the Board of the Arts Council of Ireland by Minister Martin in February 2022.

Dancer, choreographer, film maker and producer Edwina Guckian hails from outside the village of Drumsna in Co. Leitrim. She has shared the stage with some of Ireland’s most influential acts such as Altan, Dé Danann, Dervish, Mairtín O Connor, Frankie Gavin and Martin Hayes. In 2017 she was awarded the Arts Council of Ireland Next Generation Bursary to support her work on redeveloping the connection between music and movement, musician and dancer.

Edwina is artistic director of Leitrim Dance and in 2020 launched her independent production company Dreoilín Productions. She was awarded the 2022 Gradam Comaoine TG4 for her outstanding contribution to culture.

Carmel Gunning is a composer, a multi-instrumentalist, singer and teacher.. Carmel Gunning was born into a musical family – The Nangles – in Geevagh, Co. Sligo. She is a composer, a multi-instrumentalist, singer and teacher of many well-known musicians such as Liam Kelly and Orlaith MacAuliffe to name just a few. She teaches all year round and hosts The Carmel Gunning Summer Music Classes every August.

Recently, she celebrated 50 years in the music industry and published a book of her own compositions, The Sligo Maid, and a book of songs from Connaught and outside, Shamrocks from Geevagh, to mark the occasion. Her books can be purchased from The Coleman Centre, Gurteen, Co. Sligo, and/or directly from her (see contact details below).

They are very much in demand and many of her tunes are today being taught and learned in many countries. She has also devised her own system in phrasing and breath control for tin whistle and flute which she passes on to all her students.

She also released her sixth solo CD Cathair Shligigh.

She has taught music and singing at many festivals all over the world and has tutored M.A. and B.A. students at The Irish World Academy of Music in Limerick University.

Now living in Sligo town, she is working on more material to be published at a future date and plans some launches in Ireland and abroad when safe to do so.

Dan Gurney, born in upstate New York to artist parents, first picked up an accordion by chance in a toy store while Micho Russell was playing close by.. He learned Irish music from Galway-born concertina player Father Charlie Coen. After graduating from Harvard University in 2009, he lived in Galway for a year playing with the likes of Dolores Keane, Johnny Ringo McDonagh, Mick Conneely, Ronan O’Flaherty, and Brian Mc Grath.
He has appeared on Public Radio International, at the International Accordion Festival, and has won nine medals at various Fleadh Cheoil music competitions. He now lives in Dun Laoghaire with his wife Christina and daughter Saoirse.

Born in 1953 in Belfast, Colin Hamilton has been known as Hammy from his early childhood. Initially a singer, drawn to traditional music through the Clancy Brothers, he began to play the flute in the mid 1970s as part of the Belfast flute renaissance.. In 1976 he moved to Cork in connection with ethnomusicological research, mainly supporting himself by busking and becoming a coalman. He later gained a Phd in the area of Commercial Recordings of Traditional Music.

In 1979 he began flute making in the West Cork Gaeltacht of Cúil Aodha, where he still lives, although largely retired from flute making.

He now divides his time between many interests including ethnomusicological research…largely successful, gardening…moderately so, and salmon fishing…not really.

Mick Hand was born into a musical family – his grandfather Michael Devine was a noted fiddle and flute player from Casltepollard, Co Westmeath. Having started on the whistle as a teenager, Mick began to frequent John Egan’s Church St Club and the Pipers Club in Thomas St and was a regular attendee at the Oireachtas and Fleadhanna Ceoil competitions.

After turning to the flute he was greatly influenced by the playing of Dessie O’Connor.

He married Noreen Mee in 1969 and the couple emigrated to Australia before returning to Ireland with their young family – Michael John, Eamonn and Maureen in 1978. Mick became a regular player at John Kelly’s memorable weekly session in the Four Seasons pub.

He teamed up with John Kelly Jnr, John McEvoy, Daithí Sproule and Mick Gavin to form the band Kelp. He also began playing regularly with the late Seán Potts in the early 1980s and they performed and recorded together for several years in the band Bakerswell along with Kevin Glackin, Noreen O’Donoghue, Seán Óg Potts, John McEvoy and John Kelly. He released the acclaimed duet flute album – All You need is Láimh – with Eileen Hasset in 2013.

A teacher and co-ordinator at Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy, the School paid a special tribute to Mick in 2016 noting the significant legacy he left to Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy and the flute classes. A noted piano accompanist and set dancer – he also played with the Castle Céilí Band – Mick was deeply influenced by the music and traditions of West Clare.

Fiddle player Martin Hayes was born in Feakle, Co. Clare.. His father P. Joe was fiddler with the Tulla Céilí Band for fifty years. Martin began to play at the age of seven, absorbing the music of local céilí bands, and listening to Coleman, Morrison and Paddy Cronin on records from a young age. He learned much from such as Feakle concertina player John Naughton, radio programmes like The Long Note, and in Galligan’s bar at Crusheen he had the opportunity to hear performers like Séamus Ennis. Fiddlers Kathleen Collins and Tommy Potts were an influence too, the latter often visiting the family home; his uncle Paddy Canny was also inspirational. At fourteen he began playing with the Tulla band – in Ireland, England and America.

Meeting Johnny McGreevy, Liz Carroll, Michael Flatley and Seamus Connolly there drew him to the US to play in 1984, first traditional, then Celtic rock with guitarist Denis Cahill. Reverting to traditional he recorded with Green Linnet (Martin Hayes, 1992) and moved to Seattle in 1993, since then travelling constantly in Europe and the US. He considers fiddler and piper Martin Rochford to have been intensely in touch with what music is about, and felt similarly about Junior Crehan, Micho Russell, John Kelly and Pádraig O’Keeffe.

In his own music he minutely explores melody; his albums stick to one mood and his slow-fuse technique develops sensory structures in ornament and stylistic, melodic and dynamic variation. He teaches at the Willie Clancy Summer School each year, has several iconic solo albums and has contributed to many group recordings. His later recordings include Under the Moon (1995), The Lonesome Touch (1997), Live in Seattle (1999) and Welcome Here Again (2008). He was awarded TG4’s Musician of the Year Gradam in 2008.

One of the most substantial of the theoretical works on Irish music, and one that is difficult to understand, is A Handbook of Irish Music by the Rev. Dr Richard Henebry (Risteárd de Hindeberg, 1863–1916). Henebry was a traditional musician from an Irish-speaking and musical farming family in Co Waterford, a Roman Catholic priest who had served in Britain and the United States, an academic with a doctorate in Celtic studies awarded in Germany, and an early field recorder in Ireland of Irish music on cylinder.

A person of strong opinions on many subjects, and something of an eccentric, Henebry also had firm views on the nature of Irish traditional music. These were first aired in his 1903 pamphlet Irish Music, but were revealed at their fullest in the Handbook, which was edited by his colleagues in University College Cork in the years after his death and published in 1928 by Cork University Press, aided by the subscriptions of friends and admirers and with a preface by Tadhg Ó Donnchadha, his successor as Professor of Irish Language and Literature in Cork.

Accessibility

PUBLISHING INFORMATION

Test Title

Accessibility

Sign up to ITMA Archive

Login

Search

PUBLISHING INFORMATION

Test Title