The Dublin launch addresses:

• General Introduction by Dr. Liz Doherty

  Cad é mar a tá sibh. A dhaoine uaisle, a chairde, bhur gcéad fáilte go dtí an ocáid specialta seo, chun an leabhar úr Fintan Vallely a sheoladh, ceann de na saothar is tabhachtaí fá choinne cheol traidisiúnta na hÉireann a theagasc agus a thuigbheál.

  … You’re all very welcome to this occasion to mark the launch of the third edition of  The Companion to Irish Traditional Music, by Dr. Fintan Vallely.  And it’s good to see so many familiar faces here —a treat to meet so many of you here on this occasion.

  For those of you who I haven’t met before, my name is Liz Doherty, I’m a fiddle player from Buncrana, Co. Donegal. I’m a recovering Academic and am now the founder and director of I Teach Trad. and I’m delighted to be your host—I’ve always wanted to be the bean a’ tí, for this evening, this very special event.  And of course it’s fitting that we’re here in this venue, a place long associated with learning and the assembling of information, with significant figures like Joseph Cooper Walker, who compiled Historical Memoirs of the Irish Bards, in 1786, the first study of Irish music.

  Before we start, I want to acknowledge the wonderful music that we just had —from fiddler Aisling Drost Byrne, accordion player Brendan McCarthy, and Conall O’Kane who has Buncrana connections; they are all students and tutors at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance in Limerick.  We’re delighted to have them with us here this evening.

  I’ve known Fintan Vallely since the 1980s, I met him first in 1989 when I was a student in UCC, and right from the very beginning he encouraged me to speak up, to write up, to think up, to play up—and I mean that in every sense of the word.  He believed in me long before I believed in myself …  He became a trusted mentor, advisor and counsellor.  We and others hatched all kinds of plans and projects over the years, and we even brought some of them to life—like the Crossroads Conferences in 1996 and 2003, and the NAFCo 2012 Conference in Derry and Donegal.  We shared and celebrated our Academic success, and I think we actually enjoyed commiserating over our Academic lows even more … We’ve played music together from Sydney in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia to Sydney, Australia where I had the great pleasure to be part of the band for the Companach live shows a few years ago.  I’ve learnt so much from him over the years.  Not least that he totally practices what he preaches, and it’s been so inspiring to watch and to learn from him on this journey of the Companion from it’s first edition back in 1999 through to this third edition today.

  Where others would have rested on their laurels, Fintan is always about, going another round, going deeper, making it better, and we’re going to hear a little bit about that progress in due course this evening.  Now I’ll let you know the plan for the next thirty minutes or so. Gary Hastings said he would be heckling if I let this go on too long, and he’s bigger than me, so Gary, I’m on the ball here …

  I’m going to introduce you shortly to two speakers, Sinéad Neville from Cork University Press, followed by Dr. Conor Caldwell who will formally launch the new edition of The Companion to Irish Traditional Music, and then Fintan Vallely will say a few words himself.  And then of course there will be copies of the book to buy and have signed and so on.

  We’ll get the formal proceedings started and I’d love you to give a really warm welcome to the newly appointed Director of Cork University Press; this is her first launch in her new position, so please welcome Sinead Neville.

• Introduction to Conor Caldwell

  It’s my great pleasure now to welcome our next speaker who will formally launch the third edition of The Companion to Irish Traditional Music. Dr. Conor Caldwell is a fiddle player, born and bred in Belfast, now lecturing at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick. I could stand here now and tell you a lot about him, but you know what? You’d be better off reading it— so you’ll find it under ‘C’ in the Companion, so you can check that out on your way home this evening!  But for now, cuirígí fáilte roimh an Dochtúir Conor Caldwell.

• Conor Caldwell

  Ar dtús baire baith mhaith liom bhuíochas a ghabáil do Fintan  agus Cork University Press as an deis a bheith an seo anocht agus chun cúpla focal a rá agus muid ag seoladh an COMPANION TO IRISH TRADITIONAL MUSIC VOLUME 3 anseo in san Royal Irish Academy.

  Nil dábht ar bith gur ocaid stairiúil í an seoladh seo agus bá mhaith liom mo chomghairdeas a ghabháil do Fintan.

  I know from personal experience how difficult it can be to chorale researchers and musicians to get their submissions ready for impending deadlines – obviously this is because we care so much about our subject matter, about the people we are writing about, we care about the technical side of things – way we craft our sentences and the structure we create for our writing – so for Fintan to have safely delivered not, one, not two but now THREE volumes of this incredible work, is nothing short of remarkable, and for that can I ask you all to put your hands together for Fintan.

  I’d also like to briefly mention the ten major contributors to the project, some of whom are here tonight. Liz Doherty, Terry Moylan, Verena Commins, Martin Dowling, Rebecca Draisey Collishaw, Niall Keegan, Catherine Foley, Colin Hamilton, Desi Wilkinson and John Moulden. In addition to this there are more than 200 article authors found in this edition of the Companion.

  In preparing for this evening, I was minded of a symposium that I was involved in organising in 2010 in Belfast to discuss traditional fiddle music  and after the various presentations were completed, Prof Jan Smaczny in his typically polite but questioning manner asked the presenters and attendees to reflect upon what he saw as a lack of cohesiveness in the language and methodologies that were being used to investigate Irish traditional music. The lack of a centralising, coherent and reliable body of literature was also identified as a problem.

  Most of us see ourselves as musicians firstly and foremostly. Many of us are musicologists in the old sense of the word, working from the perspective of time elapsed who are informed by our reading in social and economic history. Perhaps more again are ethnomusicologists, others building their research within the framework of arts practice, as composers, and others still through analysts, and increasingly, in artificial intelligence and other branches of the mathematical sciences. So even though many of us are bound together by our common love and appreciation of the music itself, either as musicians, dancers or listeners, we think about the music in very different ways.

  It was a happy coincidence that only a few months after the conference in Belfast that Fintan’s Second Volume of the Companion was launched. The importance of that publication is underpinned by its extensive use in academic writing over the last decade and a half, offering definitional clarity for many aspects of the tradition that we often struggle to find words for. Even something as basic as explaining to someone what a ‘reel’ is can become quickly complex whenever we don’t have our instrument to rely upon.  I believe that the publication of that book provided a stimulus to researchers in irish traditional music and a measure of confidence that they could rely on the clarity that the Companion brought in their own writing – that we could rely on the Companion as an agreed foundation stone and point of reference, regardless of our methodology.

  The arrival of the third volume brings the Companion project a step further down the line, responding to more recent developments in Irish traditional music. I note that volume two arrived 12 years after volume one, and that volume three has arrived 13 years after volume 2, so while for the meantime we can celebrate the completion of this stage of the companion project, I hope we can look forward to volume four in and around 2038!

  In bringing this beautifully produced book, with the fitting and iconic JB vallely painting Port na bPucai on the cover to print, Fintan has managed to do something that seems not to be possible – the book is ‘substantially revised, expanded and refocused on contemporary issues and practices’ – yet it is somehow smaller and more portable than the previous edition which I have been breathlessly lugging around in my rucksack.

  This volume actually has more pages, some 934, compared to volume 2’s 832. The end matter of the book is particularly worthy of note bringing together lists of competition winners across the various All Ireland competitions since 1953 is a very useful reference resource that exists only partially in online sources. The manicured bibliography is also of tremendous use to researchers and those looking for further information – it recognises the variety of formats in which Irish traditional music has been discussed through the years, including the O’Riada Memorial Lecture series, various conference proceedings, tune collections and publications of new compositions.

  One of the strengths of this volume is that it makes strong and purposeful editorial decisions. The ultra-broad lense of the national – more than suitably documented elsewhere – is dispensed with in Volume three, allowing for an increased focus on the local and the personal. For example, the entry on England is significanly trimmed from several pages to a short column. Characters, many of whom from previous generations are quite unfamiliar to me, receive subtly enhanced and more specific treatment which is very useful for the reader. For example, in the entry on the singer Mary Ann Carolan, we now know the specific publications on which she was recorded, rather than that she was simply recorded by Topic records as was referenced in volume 2. An example of how regions of Ireland have undergone development is seen in the entry on county Mayo, which now has extensive notes on the piping tradition of the county going back to the early C19th. The entry on my own city of Belfast also now includes up-to-date text on the highly successful Belfast Trad Fest which points to new and exciting urban developments in the tradition, and indeed its creative director Donal O’Connor whose career as a performer has flourished since the last volume was published.

  The emphasis given to regions in this way allows us to imagine a world that in fact has many Irish traditional musics, existing independently of one another, and defined by their own communities. Importantly,  the very current issue of gender in Irish traditional music and the work of the Fair Plé movement receive their rightful place in this text, highlighting the heroic and challenging work undertaken by the likes of Una Monaghan and Tess Slominski.

  In conclusion, the Companion to Irish Traditional Music volume 3, is a monumental work. It is new high watermark, superseding the authority of – in reality – only his own previous work, in the effective explanation of our community of practice.

  It provides the kind of definitional clarity that Jan Smaczny asked for those years ago. It is central urtext that binds academics, students, musicians and even what I have come to call the ‘trad-curious’ community together. I have no doubt that with the passage of time, this volume of the companion will be amongst the most referenced and cited texts that we have – but prhaps more importantly than that, it will be treasure by the community that it documents and give joy to new generations of families to see their forebears receive their place in the story of irish traditional music.

  I’m quite sure that at some point, Fintan was asked the question ‘Why is this not a website!?’

  I’m glad that it isn’t. Scholarship, effort and toil to the extent that is evident here, deserves to exist in physical form, and I would like to also congratulate Cork University Press, not only their commitment to producing this beautiful and portable volume, but for the work they do in publishing work more broadly on Irish traditional music.

  I would like to officially declare the 3^rd Volume of the Companion to irish Traditional music LAUNCHED, and wish the very best to its editor, contributors and all who read it. Go raibh maith agaibh …

• Introduction to Fintan Vallely

  Thank you Conor—the third edition now is officially out in the world.  As Conor said, the Companion is a hugely valuable contribution to the landscape of Irish Traditional Music. And not least to education, for I can testify to that first hand.  I started lecturing in UCC back in 1994 and had just graduated from the same course myself, from the BMus. Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin had been teaching on it at the time, but he moved on to Limerick, leaving a vacancy.  When I had been on the course as a student, there was one module a week on Traditional Music—one hour a week, in first, second, third and fourth year.  And traditional music was crammed into that—everything about it was in that one hour, and for all the rest of our time we studied classical music: Haydn, Bach, Schenker analysis…  When I got the post there my ambition was to totally explode the Traditional music presence within the curriculum and create a Traditional music equivalent to each of the classical music options.  And I was so lucky that I had the support of the senior staff at the time. We opened up all kinds of new modules for the students, everything from women in Traditional music, to style, analysis, listening, the history of group playing, and so on.  All of that was great, and totally transformed the learning experience for students. Yet it was a nightmare to create the content, because as Conor said, everything was so scattered, everything was scattered and/or hidden.  This was of course early 1990s—it was pre-Google, no internet, no YouTube. My only source of information was Nicholas Carolan who I used to ring up, and he would fax me through – this is how it was in the day – fax me through pages of documents and diagrams and whatever I asked for. So when the first Companion came along in 1999 it was an absolute gift—a gift for me in my role as lecturer at the time, and a gift for students. It was a succinct, accurate and reliable, and easily navigated. And, as Conor said, a portable resource. It literally became indispensable for staff, for teachers and for students. And I relied on it often, probably mentioned it several times in any lecture, to the point where one time (I don’t know if I’ve told Fintan this before) I had a student essay where it was written: “Fintan’s Companion (I don’t know her name) knows a lot about Irish music” …  what can I say?! Now, mind you, that was from the same student who wrote that Michael Coleman was a very busy fiddle player who made 78 CDs …

  Today, so much information about Traditional Irish music has been so well documented, researched and made accessible it is amazing.  But the challenge is now to help (again, with my educator’s hat on) to help learners decipher what is true, what is authentic, what is genuine, what is real. And the Companion is one such a valuable resource in terms of a starting point for all of that, for really curating the journey of discovery and curiosity (as Conor called it) into the Traditional Arts.  And, arguably, it’s nearly more important now than ever.

  I’m shortly going to hand you over to the man himself, to Fintan for if I leave him too long (again as Conor said), he’ll be planning the fourth edition before the night’s out, and Evelyn Conlon will kill us all …

  There are two things I want to add to the conversation here tonight. First is that the work on the Companion is very much a model of inclusivity when it comes to the Traditional arts.  Fintan has assembled an impressive number of contributors from across the sector, and, again, he’s generous to young and emerging scholars and writers, always making sure to look at who’s coming behind, and give them often their first foot in the door, their first chance to get published, their first chance to be recognised. That’s really, really to be commended.

  The second thing is something more of a criticism, if I may … the front cover of the book says ‘Edited’ by Fintan, but for me, considering the spread of generosity that that’s offered by him, I think we can all appreciate that it doesn’t really fully encapsulate the huge amount of work that has gone into this project directly by him.  He has poured his life into it for many many, years, and has had the tenacity, the resilience, the curiosity, to go back to it, not only once but for a third time; that is inspirational. So it could instead be ‘pioneered by’, it could be ‘relentlessly driven by’, ‘championed by’, ultimately ‘delivered by’, Fintan Vallely.

  Now I’m going to hand you over to the musician, the composer, the educator, the researcher, the writer, the Gradam Cheoil recipient, and editor of The Companion to Irish Traditional Music, Edition 3, Dr. Fintan Vallely.

• Fintan Vallely

  Twenty-five years of ‘the Companion’ —rationale for The Companion to Irish Traditional Music, 1999-2024 Launch address by Fintan Vallely, Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, June 5th, 2024

  Thank you all for coming this evening. Quite a few of you were here thirteen years ago for the second edition, and some of you attended the first launch twenty five years ago. I feel almost impertinent to have produced a third edition of this book, for, as a neighbour I met on the street last week asked me “But what is there to add to an encyclopedia of Irish Traditional music?”

  That perfectly reasonable question stumped me for a few seconds, but the answer is simple: for, on the one hand, there are people researching all the time, revealing previously hidden aspects of the past, and, on the other, the music is not like ancient pottery—it is a contemporary music that is in everyday social and artistic practice. So the picture is ever-changing, like a touch-screen it expands from all sides. And reflecting this impermanence, I recall the words of Tom Munnelly when I first told him about the book in 1996 or 7: “Oh, great! Another dictionary! I suppose the first edition will be the proof copy …”.

  The first edition was launched in 1999 in the then most modern artefact of Traditional music imagination – the Ceol centre in Smithfield, a fabulous Aladdin’s cave of didactic technological wonders created by Harry Bradshaw and others. That centre now, however, is only a dim memory, it and its amazing devices have been growing obsolete in silence and darkness in boxes in Cork for the last decade. But unlike them, though also in Cork, the Companion to Irish Traditional music has been an active participant in Traditional music’s society …

  So many extraordinary things were said about the actual role of the Companion at its last launch that it is superfluous to repeat them here, but it IS worth remarking that if anyone wants to further or refresh their understanding of the value of literature in Traditional music history, they can still consult the lyrical words of Nicholas Carolan from his 2011 launch address — on video and in print on the book’s website at com ITM dot com. Conor Caldwell has already given some idea of what the book contains, and what is different about this edition, so only a brief summary of its genesis is appropriate for me.

  The first Companion was the brainchild of CUP’s then director, Sara Wilbourne, c. 1996, who invited me to edit one of a planned series of ‘companions’ on various subjects. At that time I was reviewing Traditional music for The Irish Times and was also lecturing in it at the National University at Maynooth, for which I had already been assembling an A-Z list of topics for student reading; this list became the basis of the Companion. Articles were requested from those whose knew particular aspects of the music, with some biographies of key figures, most of whom were dead. Instrumental music and instruments, song and dance, were covered, along with related media, issues, history and trends. A bibliography was part of it, developed out of one that had been compiled earlier by Hugh Shields and Nicholas Carolan. There was also a discography, because LPs, cassettes and CDs were then produced largely by established music ‘labels’. Most contributors were themselves musicians, singers or dancers, and all were involved in the day-to-day society of the music. Some of them were those who had already been involved with myself and Cormac Breathnach in the 1996 Crosbhealach an Cheoil conference, and so the Crosbhealach’s span of coverage also became part of the blueprint for the Companion.

  Among the first hundred or so writers were Colette Moloney, Gráinne Yeats, Ann Buckley and Ann Heymann who created the historical span, added to by Hugh Shields on ballads and the Goodman Collection, and Éamonn Ó Bróithe with Gaelic song metrics. Liam Mac an Iomaire was a hugely enthusiastic contributor, on Connemara sean-nós singers; Davy Hammond, John Moulden and Frank Harte held authority on ballads, and Séamus Mac Mathúna and Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann opened access to Treoir magazines photographs.

  Among them all, however, UCD song-collector Tom Munnelly, who launched the first edition, was a particularly supportive and constructive voice, an ally who was also strong on song and on Travelling people.

  Thus the Companion’s writers included performers who had also become part of the new academic side of Irish Traditional Music, each of whom subsequently advanced and contributed much to that field in Ireland and abroad. All aspects of the book carried information— including the cover, a painting of the piper Felix Doran. This was because he and Traveller pipers were seen as somewhat the saviours of the instrument, and on account of their constant movement, Travelling people were early transmitters of tunes and songs among the rural poor of Ireland. Also, that painting was by my cousin JB Vallely whose lifetime theme was traditional musicians—he was himself a piper and teacher, and knew the music from inside.

  Overall the first edition had c. 300,000 words in 1100 leading articles over its 478 pages, and was jointly published with New York University Press.

  Continued demand convinced Cork University Press’s next Director Mike Collins to go for a Second edition in 2011. The basis of the book had already been established, but opinions were informally canvassed from a variety of musicians and academics throughout the country and abroad, and based on their comments 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, and the discography was dropped, because—by that time—self-production of recordings was the norm, and the internet carried this perpetually-increasing and changing information adequately.

  A Kindle digital version of the book was done in addition to the hard copy, and, again, the cover was chosen for educational content—an 1832 painting by the Cork-born artist Daniel Maclise that is the earliest depiction of group playing for a social dance in Ireland, and also the earliest image of the tambourine being played in the music.

  That edition was inaugurated here in the RIA too, a proceedings directed by Michael Cronin of DCU, and launched by Nicholas Carolan, founder-director of the ITMA, with music provided by piper Odhran O Casaoide’s students from Dublin Institute of Technology, a symbolic collaboration of the everyday practice of the music with its now-established educational field.

  A website was also provided, and the book almost doubled to 832 pages with 1800 leading articles in c. 560,000 words.

  That gets us to today, and this third edition, like the Dublin City Council buildings built on the foundation of the second, that had been constructed over the ancient walls of the first. Continuing demand had convinced Mike Collins to go for this, though Covid intervened. The third edition was, however, revived, and all its stages have been marshalled into print over this last two years by Cork University Press’s Maria O’Donovan. As before, opinions were sought from teachers in particular as to what was most and least useful to them, and, out of these ideas certain items were dropped to make space for newer or revised concepts and issues. Among the book’s most significant additions are, as Conor mentioned, the fleadh results and analysis. This was only made possible – fortuitously—through access to the mammoth database work independently and voluntarily done by Kildare fiddle-player Fintan Farrell.

  Statistics and analyses were extracted from his 50,000 or so entries by Rebecca Draisey-Collishaw, creating a body of information that is unique to the Companion at this time.

  The companion album that is now part of the production, itself grew out of the second edition too, starting as a live performance and CD Companach which has been performed in Ireland and internationally since 2013. And, as before, the cover again uses imagery that comes from inside the music, another of JB Vallely’s evocative works that depicts the more-modern instruments fiddle, accordion and low whistle.
  Now with 934 pages, there are 2200 leading articles with almost six hundred thousand words.

  So that’s the genesis, and it is appropriate that this launch has been opened by CUP’s new Director Sinéad Neville, for the book marks almost a century since Cork University Press in 1928 published the first major analytical text on Irish Traditional music—A Handbook of Irish Music by Richard Henebry. It is fitting too that the event co-ordinator this evening is Liz Doherty, herself a major contributor to the book, who studied with Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin in Cork, and who has been a leading figure in Traditional-music education and promotion initiatives since the 1990s. So too for the generous formal launching by Conor Caldwell of the University of Limerick, Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin’s IWAMD, a connection that again emphasises the educational value —and function—of the book. And by Conor’s bringing us a group of University of Limerick’s musicians, the whole process is connected back to music performance.

  There have been more than two hundred contributors to this edition of the Companion. To the major ones I owe considerable gratitude, among them Liz Doherty, Terry Moylan, Rebecca Draisey Collishaw, Catherine Foley and Catherine-Anne Cullen. To Martin Ryan I owe much for his critical reading and advice on the full interim script, Verena Cummins for a quiet retreat in the music heartland of East Galway to work on the preliminary editing. Many others I have to thank too, not least Sara Wilbourne for her founding initiative, and my own uncle, Charlie Vallely, for a key financial subvention in the early years.

  As for the future of the book, well, the need for constant updating inexorably shunts the Companion up into the ether, and so consultations are under way with Liam O’Connor, Director of the Irish Traditional Music Archive, to eventually have all its words linked fluidly to the literature and recordings held by ITMA at Merrion Square.

  But for this edition I thank in particular Maria O’Donovan in Cork University Press, Cork University Press itself too for the publishing commitment, and their very patient and music-savvy proof reader Aonghus Meaney.

  For this evening, thanks to Liz, Conor and Sinéad, to Barry Dowdall for doing the video recording, to the musicians who took time out to travel with such enervating arrangements and tunes.

  And—in the manner of thanking “the parish priest for the use of the hall”— the Royal Irish Academy for hosting the event.

  But, in the end, nothing of this scale is produced without support, and so the book owes everything to the astonishing forbearance of my partner Evelyn Conlon, without whose backing it could never have happened.

  And that brings to mind the months and years of time that the book has commandeered, and what one of the first-edition writers, Grainne Yeats, said to me when bringing me her article back in 1997: “My God! I expected to find only a very old man doing something like this!”. Well, maybe now, nearly thirty years later, her expectation has been realised …

• Conclusion

  Thank you Fintan, and huge congratulations on the coming and becoming of the new edition now out into the world. That is all our formal proceedings finished for this evening —Gary, did we do it under the 30 minutes? [Gary Hastings: “Just about—yous were getting tight now]

  Please help yourself to some more refreshments. Remember there are copies for sale, it is also available on the Cork University Press website and it has it’s own independent site – www.comitm.com so you can find it online, spread the word. Every traditional musician, teacher, leaner, anybody interested in it at all, should have this on their shelves or in their hands.  So thank you all so much for your attention and Congratulations Fintan, and oíche mhaith …

• Celebration Seminar at University College Dublin

  12 November, 2024

  Dancing at the Digital Crossroads

  The Companion to Irish Traditional Music in the Maintenance of Irish Cultural Identity

  Speakers:
  Fintan Vallely
  Méabh Ní Fhuarthain, UG
  Nicholas Carolan
  Michael Cronin, TCD
  Tuesday, November 12th, ЗРМ

  B210, Newman Building UCD
  UCD School of Irish, Celtic Studies and Folklore
  Scoil a Gaeilge, an Leinn Cheiltigh agus an Bhéaloidis

  

Photos from the Launch, by Nutan