Irish Traditional Music Archive

Taisce Cheol Dúchais Éireann

Digitised Materials

To mark the 21st anniversary of its foundation in 1987, the Irish Traditional Music Archive began on 29 July 2008 a programme of making selected materials from its collections available through its website in digitised formats.

Most of the items in the ITMA’s collections are in the copyright of others – performers, composers and other creators, publishers and broadcasters, etc. – and cannot therefore be made available in this way. The complete range of materials held by the ITMA can only be fully accessed by visitors to the Archive’s premises, on a reference basis.

But the ITMA holds a considerable amount of older material which is out of copyright, and it has reached agreement with some copyright holders to make use of material which they own. It is this material which will be made available here by degrees as ITMA resources and threatened new changes in European copyright law allow (these changes will bring copyright-free items back into restrictive copyright).

The first selections of materials being made available here are sample sound recordings, printed materials, and visual materials. They are added to every two months – the next increment will be available from 1 April 2010.

Materials are made available here for the enjoyment and interest of users under the provisions of Irish copyright law. They may be shared with others on the same basis. In any non-commercial use of materials, the source must be identified as ‘Courtesy of the Irish Traditional Music Archive’ or ‘Le Dea-Mhéin Taisce Cheol Dúchais Éireann’. You may not manipulate or modify the materials supplied, or use them for any commercial purpose.