Irish Traditional Music and Dance

This paper undertakes a critical examination of the 2013–2014 writer’s journal that would ultimately serve as the intellectual, aesthetic, and autobiographical foundation for *Sketches of an Unquiet Heart: Journaling Ireland*, a forthcoming hybrid memoir that blends travel narrative, poetic meditation, and disability theory. Written during a formative year in which the author prepared to study abroad through Hofstra University’s Honors College in Dublin and Galway, the journal operates as a liminal document—situated between lived experience and literary creation, between private reflection and public authorship. It records not only the logistical, emotional, and academic preparations for the 2014 Ireland Study Abroad Program, but also captures the emergence of a poetics shaped by bodily difference, diasporic consciousness, and literary ambition.

This study reads the journal through a multidisciplinary critical lens, drawing on theories from life writing studies, disability studies, and affect theory. Specifically, it engages the work of scholars such as Leigh Gilmore, G. Thomas Couser, and Petra Kuppers to interrogate how disabled embodiment informs narrative structure, temporal pacing, and formal hybridity. The paper also situates the journal within the broader tradition of travel writing and educational autobiography, while challenging the normative frameworks through which mobility, independence, and intellectual authority are typically conceived. In contrast to the able-bodied archetype of the solitary, unencumbered traveler, the journal documents a subject negotiating institutional bureaucracy, physical limitations, and emotional vulnerability, while nonetheless articulating an expansive literary and spiritual vision.

Central to the journal’s content is its intertextual dialogue with the Irish literary canon, especially the works of W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, Seamus Heaney, and Oscar Wilde. These influences are not passively absorbed but actively reinterpreted through the writer’s lived experience as a Latin-American woman and disabled student. The journal also reflects a sustained engagement with modernist and postmodernist forms, particularly those found in the writings of Virginia Woolf, whose stream-of-consciousness technique and attention to interiority deeply inform the voice and structure of both the journal and the memoir it would inspire.

This paper argues that the 2013–2014 journal constitutes not merely a preparatory exercise but a rigorous site of creative-critical praxis. It functions as a “crip archive,” to borrow Alison Kafer’s term—a space in which disabled life is not merely chronicled but theorized, where the act of journaling becomes an epistemological intervention into dominant narratives of ability, agency, and authorship. Through close reading of selected entries, the paper reveals how the journal’s fragmented, lyrical style anticipates the experimental form of *Sketches of an Unquiet Heart*, and how personal writing can function as both a resistance to institutional marginalization and a generative blueprint for inclusive literary futures.

One of our strategic aims is to establish thought leadership across the harp sector by building up a body of thinking about the harp and harping through a historical and contemporary lens. Harp Perspectives is a conversation about harping and features key informants, harpers and non-harpers, sharing their authentic views and ideas. We believe that this combination of scholarly research and personal insights will highlight the harping legacy inherited from our tradition bearers and help forge a contemporary harping identity, secure in its understanding of its origin and how it wishes to evolve. Our August edition features the research of renowned harp player and musicologist, Teresa O'Donnell, as she traces the history of Cairde na Cruite, Friends of the Harp from its foundation, more than sixty years ago, through its early years. Meet its illustrious founders and admire their foresight as they paved the way for the revival of the Irish harp. In the coming months, we will be welcoming many other voices to the conversation and hope that they will broaden horizons and provide new perspectives on current and future harp directions. Our thanks to each of our contributors for their willingness to add their voices. Their contributions will no doubt enrich our thinking.

This article reports on findings from a survey conducted (2019-2020) on the website www. surveymonkey.com, for responses relating to experiences with digital archival resources by Irish traditional musicians based exclusively in North America. The survey sought to examine how performers perceive and interact with digital archival resources of Irish traditional music. In terms of demographics, anonymous submissions were received from a wide-ranging set of musicians, performers, dancers, broadcasters, and enthusiasts. Of the 528 responses, 206 identified as female, 310 as male, and three as nonbinary or other. Cawley and Ward both examined performers' use of digital resources primarily in Ireland through the lens of education and acculturation (Cawley 2013; Ward 2016). They highlight the various ways that performers become accustomed to the tradition, and digital resources are seen to be a contributor to the process of enculturation. This survey focused specifically on the experiences of practitioners in North America. A focus was also placed on issues surrounding the performers' relationships to place, the demographics of Irish traditional musicians who use digital resources, and interactions with archives in that region. Even though the Irish Traditional Music Archive website at Dublin, Ireland, was identified as the most popular web resource for musicians learning Irish traditional music in North America, a plethora of resources were identified by survey participants, which led to greater insight into the range of different approaches to audio material and archives for musicians in that region. Some implications of the work are discussed in the final section. Cet article rend compte des résultats d'une enquête menée (2019-2020) sur le site web www. surveymonkey.com, pour des réponses relatives aux expériences avec les ressources d'archives numériques par des musiciens traditionnels irlandais basés exclusivement en Amérique du Nord. L'enquête visait à examiner comment les interprètes perçoivent et interagissent avec les ressources d'archives numériques de la musique traditionnelle irlandaise. En termes de démographie, des réponses anonymes ont été reçues de la part d'un large éventail de musiciens, d'interprètes, de danseurs, de diffuseurs et de passionnés. Sur les 528 réponses, 206 étaient des femmes, 310 des Digital Studies/Le champ numérique is a peer-reviewed open access journal published by the Open Library of Humanities.

Ennis, County Clare in the west of Ireland, is now considered to be one of the principal strongholds of traditional Irish music practice in the world. During the 1970s, traditional music practice became a 'living tradition', becoming increasingly relevant to Ennis musicians and to the life of the town in general. However, prior to 1961, music practice in the town appears to have been limited to a few musicians, many of whom had roots in rural areas. A history of unbroken effective teaching since then has contributed to this transformation. In this thesis, I address the emergence of the formalization of the transmission of traditional music through educational means i.e. the setting up of the first institutionally led class in 17/4/1961. I examine the conditions which led to it, looking at the ideological foundations which underpinned the introduction of this formal structure. I focus principally on the institutional bodies through which it occurred; namely the Clare Vocational Education Committee and Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann. This class was particularly significant in that it was the first such class for the teaching of traditional Irish dance music to be recognized by the Department of Education. Since then there has been a steady increase in the number and diversity of class contexts, to meet the demands of growing student numbers and changes in society. I trace the connections between it and subsequent classes in Ennis and its hinterland. Formal classes in the 1970s were primarily concerned with teaching the fundamentals of music theory and practice. I examine the pedagogic strategies employed by the teachers. In addition, as students progressed and became more accomplished in their instruments and their interest increased, it was inevitable that opportunities to perform would follow. I examine the music teachers roles, as bridge builders between the community and the classroom; and in facilitating learning by experiencing and taking part in a living tradition within the community, looking at the ways the formal classroom based learning of a tradition became a gateway for less formal experiential learning within the community. Therefore, focussing on both the formal and informal transmission of knowledge, I examine how, why and what type of musical knowledge was formally taught, and what knowledge was taken for granted. While opportunities to participate in established community practices could be anticipated, changing economic and social conditions, the emergence of cultural tourism, together with the growing numbers of musicians in Ennis, became a stimulus for the development of new performance contexts and practices, which in turn contributed to the reshaping of the identity of Ennis, from being a place largely devoid of traditional music to becoming a place internationally known and recognised as a major hub of the tradition. viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This has been a long and sometimes arduous journey, one that I am certain I could not have completed without encouragement, and the practical and moral support of many people. Firstly I wish to acknowledge the many extraordinary people who are referenced in this thesis. It was their actions that inspired this. I was privileged to have grown up in Ennis at a very special time and to have crossed paths with such exceptionally generous people; mentors, teachers, musicians, neighbours and friends. Theirs was a story that needed to be told. A special thank you to all the people I interviewed. Their insights reinforced the specialness of this time. Sadly a number have passed away since doing so; Brendan McMahon and Sonny Murray, solas na bhFlaitheas ar a n'anamnacha (the light of Heaven on their souls). I would also like to acknowledge all those who corresponded with me and who generously shared their personal memories. Thanks to Seán Reid Junior for his generosity in sharing personal files and memories of his father, and to Kerry Barrett for giving me access to his father Tom's private papers. This work would not have come to fruition without my supervisor Dr. Aileen Dillane, who motivated me, and guided me, always making me believe that I could do it. I can never thank her enough for her support and especially for her kindness during some very challenging times.

The original compositions of Irish fiddler Patrick Mangan live at the crossroads of traditionalism and cosmopolitanism. A fourth-generation student in the prestigious Michael Coleman Sligo-style Irish fiddle gharana and a 21st-century Riverdance celebrity, Mangan’s original fiddle music on his 2015 recording Departures illustrates the deeply-ingrained traditional melodic vocabulary set within a globally-inspired harmonic and rhythmic framework.

In this paper, I will analyze Mangan’s compositional language and show where and how he has received inspiration (evidenced through melodic quotation) from sources in the anonymous dance repertoire of Irish traditional music and from composer Bill Whelan’s original music for the international Riverdance tours.

I argue that despite exposure to multiple musical styles, genres, and structures, Mangan’s first musical language—that of Irish traditional dance music—tacitly dominates his compositional style and serves as a primary reference point for musical innovation.

Ciaran Carson has established a reputation as one of Ireland's most important poetic voices. However, Carson is also an accomplished musician whose work reflects the liminal borderland that has always existed between Irish music and Irish literature. Music is a prominent theme throughout Carson's work with songs and musical allusions frequently a feature of his poems. While music has influenced Carson's work thematically, it has played a formative role in one of the most distinctive features of his poetry until recently - that is his use of the long line. This paper argues that it is even possible in some of his poems to find comparable metres with those found in forms of traditional Irish music. Carson's use of the long line is part of his attempt to recreate what he has called the urgency of traditional Irish music in his work through an audience-aware poetic that attempts to recreate the immediacy of the live sessions Carson has partaken of as a musician. For Carson, the crucial moments of communication and understanding are those shared between the performer and the audience, an audience that can sometimes include fellow performers. However, this conviction is reflected in understandings of musical events one finds in ethnomusicology, an audience-orientated approach increasingly shared by literary theorists.

Anáil an Bhéil Bheo brings together a stimulating range of interdisciplinary essays considering the connections between orality and modern Irish culture. From literature to song, folklore to the visual arts, contributors examine not only the connections between oral and textual traditions in Ireland, but also the theoretical concept of “orality” itself and the corresponding significance of oral texts in Irish society. Featuring work by emerging scholars in the fields of history, literature, folklore, music, women’s studies, film and theatre studies and disciplines contributing to Irish Studies, this multifaceted volume also includes contributions from scholars long engaged with issues of orality such as Gearóid Ó Crualaoich and Henry Glassie.

"The oldest records indicate that the performance of poetry in Gaelic Ireland was normally accompanied by music, providing a point of continuity with past tradition while bolstering a sense of community in the present. Music would also offer, particularly for poets writing in English from the eighteenth century onwards, a perceived authenticity, a connection with an older tradition perceived as being untarnished by linguistic and cultural division.

While providing an innovative analysis of theoretical work in music and literary studies, this book examines how traditional Irish music, including the related song tradition (primarily in Irish), has influenced, and is apparent in, the work of Irish poets. While looking generally at where this influence is evident historically and in contemporary Irish poetry, this work focuses primarily on the work of six poets, three who write in English and three who write primarily in the Irish language: Thomas Kinsella, Seamus Heaney, Ciaran Carson, Gearóid Mac Lochlainn, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Cathal Ó Searcaigh."