Entries Related To: wexford

Bonaparte’s retreat, set dance ; The Dingle reel / Pip Murphy ; John Murphy

Ciarán Dunne, flute / Bill Doyle

Clár na gComórtas cover for Fleadh Cheoil, Gorey, 1962

Cover of programme for Fleadh Cheoil, Gorey, 1962

Crowd at the Fleadh Cheoil, Gorey, 1962 / Bord Fáilte

Down by the riverside / Minnie Murphy

Down by the riverside, song (When I was young and in my prime my age scarce twenty-one …) This song tells the tale of a man whose parents force him to marry a woman of higher social status, forsaking the woman he loves. He later murders his wife because he cannot live with his choice. He is sentenced to hang for his crimes.  After Minnie Murphy finished her performance, one of the men present in the room comments that he sometimes heard this song in the lumber camps of western Newfoundland. Little is known about the origins of the song, though the reference to Wexford Gaol suggests a possible southeast Ireland connection. Variants, including that collected by MacEdward Leach from John James of Trepassey, Newfoundland, have been recorded almost exclusively in Newfoundland.

Dudley Colclough, uilleann pipes / unidentified artist

Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, Gorey, 1962 / Bord Fáilte

Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, the annual all-Ireland competitive traditional music festival of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, was first held in 1952, in Co Monaghan. Ten years later, by June 1962 when it was held in the town of Gorey, Co Wexford, the fleadh had grown enormorously in popularity and was a fixed event on the national calendar. In those years the festival was held at the Whit weekend. The large crowds that were drawn to Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann were of interest to Bord Fáilte, the national tourist board, which often sent its photographers to capture the musicians, singers and dancers, and the crowds. The result was a body of professionally taken images which were used in contemporary tourist brochures, posters, and magazine like Ireland of the Welcomes. By now these photographs have achieved archival status and are a valuble cultural record of the traditional music of other times. The selection preseneted here from the collections of the Irish Traditional Music Archive are reproduced courtesy of Fáilte Ireland (as Bord Fáilte is now called). NC & IL, 1 August 2012

Group of men and women dancing at the Fleadh Cheoil, Gorey, 1962 / Bord Fáilte

Group of men and women dancing on stage at the Fleadh Cheoil, Gorey, 1962 / Bord Fáilte

Group of musicians at the Fleadh Cheoil, Gorey, 1962 / Bord Fáilte

Group of set dancers and musicians at the Fleadh Cheoil, Gorey, 1962 / Bord Fáilte