The Francis O’Neill Cylinders

Type: CDs

The Francis O'Neill cylinders : thirty-two recordings of Irish Traditional music in America circa 1904 / Patsy Touhey, John Early, and James McFadden

The music on these historic cylinder recordings offers a rare opportunity to those interested in Irish traditional music. Recorded sometime about 1904, these cylinders construct an auditory bridge to the written musical notation of traditional tunes collected by Francis O’Neill alongside his recorded musical companions. The sound recordings allow us to hear the music that is a frozen skeleton on O’Neill’s printed page coming alive in the flesh and blood of a real performance. 

For the story behind these cylinder recordings please see the Dunn Family Collection online exhibition on the Ward Irish Music Archives website.