The Companion to Irish Traditional Music first appeared in 1999, a concept that began three years earlier with  CUP’s then director, Sara Wilbourne, who wanted Traditional music to be part of a planned series of ‘companions’ to various subjects. I was approached to edit it because at that time I was reviewing Traditional music for The Irish Times and was also lecturing in it at the National University of Ireland at Maynooth. It was decided that a broad approach was needed rather than a single voice, so articles were requested from those whose specialities were particular aspects of the music; a hundred such observers were approached.

The original idea was just to have hard information on what the music was, and about instruments, with some biographies of stylists and other key figures, most of whom were dead, but this expanded to include living stylists too. The book covered instrumental music, song and dance, and related media, issues, history, trends, people, and other cultures. An itemised bibliography was provided—of books about the music, song and dance in both Irish and English. It included material that was solely to be found in libraries, as well as what was available, a listing that was by agreement developed out of one that had already been compiled by Hugh Shields and Nicholas Carolan. 

It was decided also to include a discography, because the volume of recordings at that time was not huge, and LPs, cassettes and CDs were then produced largely by established music ‘labels’. Images were sought from people who were known to have specialised in photos of people, events and such. Not all potential contributors were in the economic position to commit time, but overall the work was undertaken enthusiastically in the interests of making information available.

Most contributors were themselves musicians, singers or dancers, and all were involved in the day-to-day society of the music. For instance, much rudimentary reduction of lengthy topics already in print was done by one of the editor’s students at Maynooth, pianist Caitriona McEniry, and typing from faxes was done by singer Niamh Parsons. Major contributors included those who had already been involved with the editor in setting up the 1996 Crosbhealach an Cheoil conference, the first such event in Traditional music, a loose grouping who saw themselves as an education-source parallel and complementary to established universities wherein the music field was then small; the Crosbhealach’s span of coverage indeed became part of the blueprint for the Companion. Colette Moloney, a specialist on Bunting, was another consultant, on older material, as were Gráinne Yeats and Ann Heymann, major figures in harp research and performance. UCD song-collector Tom Munnelly was an enthusiastic contributor and ally on song and on Travelling people, as was piper Éamonn Ó Bróithe on old song metres. Hugh Shields gave extensive, valuable material on old ballads and on the Goodman collection.

The first edition also included material on related cultures, in both ancient and modern time, as this was then not easily accessible otherwise: Cape Breton was covered by Liz Doherty, Brittany by Desi Wilkinson, as were Scotland, Wales, Canada, Isle of Man, and major regions of the USA by others. This was done to emphasise that Irish music was not an isolated entity, but shared and interdependence with neighbouring and emigrant cultures. 

Thus the Companion’s articles were generally written by traditional musicians, many of whom had also become part of the new academic-subject area of Irish Traditional Music, and all of whom have subsequently advanced and contributed much to that field in Ireland and abroad. In the first edition, coverage of regions in Ireland was limited and uneven, with only major counties, or areas upon which some writing had already been done, being covered. This was largely due to available space. Cork University Press (CUP) policy required that all work be peer-assessed, and its consequent reader reports were both tough and constructively critical. All advice from these was important in shaping the book, keeping it academic, steering clear of the personal, polemic and parochial.

The hundred or so contributors gave variety to the feel of the book, though also increased the likelihood of uncheckable error. All material was edited down to a detached ‘house’ style, and supporting imagery included notated examples of the various tune-types and ornamentation, while photographs aided the description of instruments. The cover of the first edition was considered a didactic feature in itself, with a painting of the piper Felix Doran, chosen because he and Traveller pipers were seen as somewhat the saviours of the instrument prior to the formation of CCÉ in 1951, and  NPU in 1968. Also, on account of their constant peregrinations, Travelling people were the earliest transmitters of the music, tunes and songs around Ireland.

Additionally, the painting was by the artist JB Vallely whose lifetime theme was traditional musicians—he was himself a piper and so knew the music and piping fields from inside; he was also a founder of the APC, a teaching body that has by now taught more than 6000 young musicians over its c. 60 years. Overall this volume had c. 300,000 words in 1100 leading articles over its 478 pages, and was jointly published with New York University Press.

Cork University Press decided c. 2008 that a second, expanded edition of the book was feasible, and I was again asked to be editor. Opinions were informally canvassed from a variety of musicians and academics throughout the country and abroad, based on which many new ideas were taken on. The culture-related material was developed, as was coverage of counties in Ireland itself. Biographies were greatly expanded to include the living, with, typically, people writing their own basic material (as much to avoid error as contention) which was then edited to house style.

The main difference to the first edition was the scale of the biographical and region-related writing, the increase in notated tune-examples, and an extensive index of non-central names and places that the first edition could not afford. The discography was dropped, as by that time self-production of recordings had mushroomed, and the internet carried this perpetually-increasing and changing information adequately and more efficiently. A subsidiary Kindle digital version of the book was done in addition to the hard copy.

The cover image of the second edition was again chosen for its educational content, an 1832 painting by the Cork-born artist Daniel Maclise which is the earliest depiction in a painting of group playing for a social dance in Ireland. It shows three instruments still central in Traditional music—pipes, fiddle and flute, and is also the earliest image of the tambourine being played in the music.

This edition was launched in 2011 at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin, a proceedings chaired by Prof Michael Cronin, of Dublin City University, later Prof of French in TCD, with the launch address given by Nicholas Carolan, founder-director of the Irish Traditional Music Archive. Music was provided by piper Odhran O Casaoide’s traditional-music students from Dublin Institute of Technology (now TUD), a symbolic collaboration that associated the historical and everyday practice of the music with its developing educational field.

Considerable web information was provided as an adjunct for that edition, including video of the event and the speeches (see comitm.com). Overall, the book’s 832 pages carried 1800 leading articles in c. 560,000 words.

Continuing demand led to CUP’s then Director Mike Collins committing to produce a third edition which was commissioned pre-Covid. In addition to major commercial and educational changes, the intervention of the pandemic had introduced or highlighted sufficient new parameters to justify a totally new edition. As with the second edition, opinions were sought from teachers in particular as to what was most and least useful to them.

Out of these ideas certain items were dropped in order to make space for other newer or revised concepts and issues. This reasoning led to abandoning the detailed index, the extensive sister-cultures articles, and reducing the extent of the timeline. Alteration was also partly driven by the fact that major studies on the related cultures of Scotland, Brittany, Man, Cape Breton, England etc were by now well covered in other dedicated books, and so information on them in an Irish-music encyclopedia was no longer needed.

Storytelling was dropped too as it is not strictly part of everyday music-making, and – as a form of drama – seems deserving of a more focused and extensive independent treatment. (These ‘dropped’ subjects are provided for reference elsewhere on this website). Much sociological content was expanded to take account of changing mores in Irish society, not least with regard to the participation of women in professional music-making. 

The major addition, however, has been the inclusion of senior-level competition results for all of the seventy-three years of the All-Ireland fleadh, something fortuitously made feasible only by the mammoth database work voluntarily undertaken by Kildare fiddle-player Fintan Farrell from whose tediously-assembled figures statistics and analyses were extracted by Rebecca Draisey-Collishaw; this body of information is unique to the Companion at this time. 

Also, as regards music, a companion album is now part of the production—almost three-quarters of the tunes notated in the book can be heard on a digital-download album, performed in the mixed-tune-type fashion that was pioneered by Seán Ó Riada, a style symbolic of the revival years. This music programme was initially developed out of the second edition, and has already been performed live in Ireland and internationally. Other unique information includes a refined history of the bodhran, an instrument greatly misrepresented in much web and other commentary. Women in Traditional music are commented on in specific articles as well as in an ongoing manner, and among the book’s significant additions is regional and gender analysis of All-Ireland fleadh winners in the major categories. 

The cover of the third edition reverts to a contemporary painting style, again by the pioneer of this in Traditional music, JB Vallely, imagery that comes from inside the music, this time depicting the more-modern instruments fiddle, accordion and low whistle. Regional information is now city- and locale-based, reflecting CCÉ’s emigré-based organisational ethos, and the large song and dance sections have been substantially structurally revised for clarity. With 934 pages, there are 2200 leading articles with 596,000 words. 

The launch of this edition was again held at the Royal Irish Academy, with the view of placing the subject and its assembly of information in a prominent learning institute that is associated with the earliest writings on Irish music and its renowned commentators and analysis. The launch was opened by Cork University Press’s incoming director Sinéad Neville, marking almost a century since that Press in 1928 published the first major analytical text on Irish Traditional music—A Handbook of Irish Music by Richard Henebry. The event co-ordinator was Liz Doherty, a leading figure in Traditional-music education and promotion initiatives since the 1990s, an engagement that began with her being taught fiddle in Donegal by a noted master player. She studied music at UCC under Prof. Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, did her doctoral research on the Cape Breton fiddle, and post-doc lecturing on the UCC programme. The formal launch address was given by musician and researcher Conor Caldwell of University of Limerick’s IWAMD, whose PhD was on Donegal fiddle, and who is a joint editor of The Oxford Handbook of Irish Song (2024). This acknowledged the remarkable pioneer role of his university under Ó Súilleabháin’s direction and inspiration, as did the provision of music for the occasion by a group of his college’s students.