Images from the Irish Traditional Music Archive
Student dancers at the Belltable Arts Centre, Limerick, May 2008: photograph from a current exhibition at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick, by Maurice Gunning, photographer-in-residence at the Academy
A nineteenth-century Irish flute player c. 1888 in ‘The Schoolmaster’s Moment of Leisure’, a watercolour and gouache by the American artist Howard Helmick (1845–1907) in the collections of the National Gallery of Ireland
Family music: Tommy and Siobhán Peoples at the Willie Clancy Summer School Fiddle Recital, Miltown Malbay, Co. Clare, 9 July 2007
Front cover (recto and verso) of the first issue of The Irish Musical Monthly, an early twentieth-century Dublin periodical
An Irish harper on the continent: portrait of Cork merchant William Archdeacon with his family (c. 1750), from painting in private collection, Ghent.
Traditional singer Maggie Murphy (second from left) at Slieve Gullion Festival of Traditional Singing, Mullaghbawn, Co Armagh, October 1993: from colour photo by Ken Garland, London. Photo © Ken Garland, courtesy Ken Garland & Irish Traditional Music Archive.
The Irish harp as national symbol at Daniel O’Connell’s Monster Repeal Meeting on Tara Hill, Co. Meath, 15 August 1843: engraving from The Illustrated London News (26 August 1843)
Ronnie Drew (right), Luke Kelly (seated), Ciarán Burke, & Barney McKenna on the cover of the first of some fifty original long-playing records (and hundreds of reissues) by the Dubliners group, Transatlantic TRA 116, issued 1964. Photo and design Brian Shuel.
Meeting of Uilleann Pipers, Neptune Hotel, Bettystown, Co. Meath, 7 April 1968. Photographer unknown.
Harry Bradshaw, recipient of the ‘Gradam na gCeoltóirí’ award of the TG4 Television Gradaim Ceoil 2008, in an RTÉ radio studio 1992. Photo by RTÉ photographer John Rowe.
Black Raven Pipe and Drum Band, Lusk, Co Dublin, at Killarney Oireachtas, July 1914. Photo by Cork Examiner photographer.
Galway traditional singer Seosamh Ó hÉanaí (centre) with, possibly, a relative (first right); Tom Clancy of the Clancy Brothers singing group (?) (first left); and, possibly, a neighbour of Ó hÉanaí’s. Photograph seemingly taken in Connemara in the 1970s,
Seamus Ennis, uilleann pipes (second from right), with Peadar Mercier, bodhrán; Dan O’Dowd, uilleann pipes; and (?) Proinnsias Ní Dhorchaí, flute; by river Liffey, c. late 1970s, photographer unknown.
Publicity photo of Armagh professional singer, instrumentalist and songwriter Tommy Makem with American five-string banjo, c. 1969
Traditional-song collector Tom Munnelly (second, left) with Clare traditional singers Tom Lenihan, Miltown Malbay; Kate Droney, Ballyvaughan; Martin Reidy, Connolly; and Michael ‘Straighty’ Flanagan, Inagh, at the Willie Clancy Summer School, Miltown...
Dublin singer Siobhán Ní Laoire at an event of the Sean-Nós Cois Life Traditional Singing Festival on 2 April 1993 in the Góilín Club at the Ferryman, Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Dublin 2, with fellow-singers Clíona Ní Shúilleabháin, Áine uí Cheallaigh, and Frank Harte. Photograph by Dublin singer Luke Cheevers
A musically unreliable nineteenth-century mezzotint depicting the Longford poet, novelist and dramatist Oliver Goldsmith (1728–74) on the Continet. The engraving, by W. Greatbach, is of a painting by the noted English artist Edward Matthew Ward (1816–79).Goldmith...
The group Seachtar, which within a year or two and with some change of personnel would become internationally famous as the Bothy Band.
Accordion players being recorded on stage in Hall an Phobail, Miltown Malbay, Co Clare, 10 July 2003
ACCORDION PLAYERS BEING RECORDED ON STAGE IN HALLA AN PHOBAIL, MILTOWN MALBAY, CO CLARE, 10 JULY 2003, AT THE THIRTY-FIRST WILLIE CLANCY SUMMER SCHOOL. LEADING EXPONENTS OF FIDDLE, WHISTLE & FLUTE, UILLEANN PIPES, ACCORDION, CONCERTINA, SINGING IN ENGLISH...
Drawing made 14 July 1977 by artist Eamonn O’Doherty of fiddle-player and raconteur John Loughran in his home in Pomeroy, Co. Tyrone – from the Irish Traditional Music Archive travelling exhibition ‘The Northern Fiddler’.
TRADITIONAL SINGER AND SONGMAKER EDDIE BUTCHER (1900-80) FROM MAGILLIGAN, NORTH CO. DERRY, SINGING AT FÉILE NA BÓINNE, DROGHEDA, 1977