Irish Traditional Music Archive

Taisce Cheol Dúchais Éireann

Press Release: 16 November 2006

OFFICIAL OPENING OF NEW PREMISES
OF THE IRISH TRADITIONAL MUSIC ARCHIVE

Over 300 people attended the official opening last night [Wednesday 15 November] of the new premises of the Irish Traditional Music Archive at 73 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, a Georgian heritage building. They included members of the traditional music community from around the country; representatives of the Arts Councils, North and South, which fund the Archive; and archivists, librarians, and representatives of other State cultural institutions.

The opening was performed by Mr John O’Donoghue TD, Minister for Arts, Sport & Tourism, who welcomed the progress made by the Archive to date and looked forward to the expansion of services that would be made possible by its move to the new premises. Cathal Goan, Director-General of RTÉ and Chairman of the Archive, and Nicholas Carolan, Director of the Archive, also spoke. Music and song was provided by Archive Board members Paddy Glackin (Dublin), Dermot McLaughlin (Derry) and Máire Ní Chéileachair (Cork), and Connemara sean-nós dancer Máire Áine Ní hIarnáin also performed.

The Archive’s new premises have been allocated to it by the Office of Public Works which has conserved and restored the building to the highest standards under the supervision of Senior Architect Niall Parsons. It comprises four stories over a basement, and the building’s original coach house. There are public rooms for accessing the Archive’s collections and its databases, a basement audio and video recording studio, specialist rooms for the processing of materials, reception and administrative areas, and specialist storage areas.

In its new premises the Archive holds, preserves and gives free public access to the largest collection in existence of the materials of Irish traditional music: sound recordings, books and serials, photographs, ballad sheets and sheet music, videotapes and DVDs, and a mass of other materials. It also holds the largest body in existence of information about the music, organised on unique computer catalogues and indexes. More than half a million content items have been catalogued. The Archive also disseminates its materials and information through book and CD publications and travelling exhibitions, and by cooperating with a wide variety of cultural partners, especially in broadcasting the long-running television series Come West along the Road on RTÉ 1 and Siar an Bóthar on TG4.