Heritage Week 3

ITMA’s fourth Heritage Week 2021 gallery contain a small selection of images collected by Breandán Breathnach during his lifetime. Breathnach sourced images from a variety of organisations, media outlets, individuals, libraries, archives, galleries and museums.

In the gallery below we see a wonderful image of the Castle Céilí Band taken in 1962 by an Independent Newspapers photographer. The clarity and composition of the image are telling signs that this photograph was taken by a professional. The fun of a great evening in the Francis Xavier Hall, Dublin is very much evident in this picture. ITMA is grateful to Independent Newspapers and the National Library of Ireland for permission to reproduce this image here as part of Heritage Week. However, not all images in Cnuasach an Bhreathnaigh were taken by professionals. The image below from 1957 of Willie Clancy at the first Fleadh Cheoil in Miltown Malbay, Co. Clare may have been taken by an amateur photographer (Jim Griffith a visitor from the States) but what a fantastic picture of a young Willie Clancy surrounded by his many adoring fans! This and five other images taken at the same time were sent to Breathnach by Terry Wilson in August 1985. ITMA would like to thank Terry for granting permission to make this image available here. 

Heritage Council Funding 2021

ITMA’s unique image collection now stands at over 21,700 items. Many of these exist in obsolete physical formats only which limits access to this material to those who can visit the ITMA premises in Merrion Square, Dublin. This year (2021) the Heritage Council has awarded ITMA a grant to digitise, preserve and make accessible, to archival best practice, some 4,500+ slides, negatives and photographs from the collections of two highly significant figures in Irish traditional music: Breandán Breathnach (1912-1985) & Gráinne Yeats (1925-2013).