On 24 March 2020, ITMA posted some images and a short note about Pádraig O’Keeffe manuscripts on its facebook page. This re-opened a lovely conversation with Paud and Denis Collins from Knocknagoshel, Co Kerry who had donated the collection to ITMA in 2013.

Transition Year 2020 brought another wonderful young traditional music student through our doors in February. As well as practical archiving experience with staff, we guided Emer, the harper, to the online Stephen Grier Collection. Emer takes up the story ...

Hello hello

At the Willie Clancy Summer School 2018, ITMA and TG4 launched a collaborative project that showcases some of the best voices in Irish traditional music. This year, TG4 made available the video broadcasts of all the annual TG4 Gradam Ceoil awards ceremonies since 1998 and ITMA identified the names of each tune, song, and performer featured in 20 years of award programmes. Cathal Goan, ex-head of TG4 and ex-chairman of the board of ITMA, launched the new archival website. 

Music, song, dance, merriment and drinking have been synonymous with the celebration of St. Patrick by Irish people all over the world for many centuries. This year most parades will be cancelled owing to the COVID-19 virus and thousands of musicians will not have the same opportunities to perform the tune most commonly associated with the annual celebrations St. Patrick’s Day. In this blog ITMA Director Liam O'Connor will look into the history of the well-known melody. It is certainly not intended as a comprehensive or definitive account as currently there are 964 references to it in ITMA’s catalogue and not all of them can be accessed at present! 

2020 sees a Saint Patrick's Day that we could scarcely have imagined. Wherever you are we hope you will enjoy this small tribute to the day from the Staff at ITMA. Stay safe and well.

The staff at ITMA are putting the spotlight on women this March 8th. Read, listen, and watch a few of our favourite selections from the ITMA collection!

Stephen Grier (c.1824–1894), a native of north Longford, moved to Newpark, Bohey, Gortletteragh, in south Leitrim in 1852. An uilleann piper and fiddle player, he compiled a collection of over 1,000 melodies, transcribed mainly in the 1880s.

Highlighting three more tracks, Liam O'Connor continues his exploration of the 1952 reel-to-reel recording of Cork fiddle player Séamus O'Mahony (1900–1991). ITMA is indebted to Brendan E. O'Mahony, Seamus' son who has generously allowed ITMA to freely share these recordings with the traditional music community.

Trad Cherubs Day 1 Guess Who

There was great reaction to the blog and recordings of Cork fiddle player Séamus O’Mahony (1900–91) released in our September 2019 Newsletter.  This month, ITMA is sharing three more tracks from the same recording session made in 1952.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Séamus O’Mahony (1900–1991) was regarded as one of the leading fiddle players in Ireland. Captain Francis O’Neill held Séamus O’Mahony in such high esteem that he included the young fiddle player in Irish Minstrels and Musicians (1913) despite Séamus being just 13 years of age at the time of print. Yet, in recent decades, O’Mahony’s music has almost been forgotten.