Joe Burke Archive

Joe Burke Music Archive 

Deeply embedded in the musical landscape of his native Kilnadeema, County Galway, Joe Burke, the reknowned button accordion player, has amassed an enviable collection of music recordings, in addition to keeping meticulous records of correspondance, newspaper clippings, photographs and promotional documents.  Joe was searching for a suitable home for this collection, which would recognise the local, national and indeed international importance of the material.  In 2004, he found an eager and appropriate recipient for the donation in the Centre for Irish Studies, at the National University of Ireland, Galway. The daunting task of processing Joe’s extensive collection has been ongoing since that time, and the first phase of the digitisation project is now complete. 

Joe is of a generation of musicians who presided over and witnessed dramatic changes to the traditional arts during the second half of the 20th century, particularly the years c.1945-1970. Scholarship in traditional music and dance has up to recently focused on the earlier part of the century—the golden era of recording Irish music in both the US and Britain. By the mid-1940s, the larger international recording companies had discontinued their recording of Irish Music. In Ireland, other bodies such as Radio Eireann (or 2RN, as it was then known), Gael Linn and the Folklore Department, UCD (initially the Folklore Commission), were to fill the vacuum of documenting and promoting Irish music and dance.

The transition of music and dance from a predominantly domestic to predominantly  public domain was actively being navigated, against the backdrop of delayed modernity in Ireland. This was a challenge to traditional art forms.  Though it would be disingenuous to suggest that traditional cultural expressions  had not always been in constant flux, this period signaled an accellerated rate of change.  It is at exactly this juncture that Joe began recording and gathering documentation and dialogue surrounding music. His motivation initially was to expand his own repetoire and develop style, but quickly realised the incidental importance of his endeavours. The collection will be housed at the archives of the Centre for Irish Studies, but ultimately, it is hoped, will be available on-line for wider access.  This collection will provide an extraordinary resource for musicians and scholars alike, and represents the Centre’s commitment to Irish Music Studies as an integral part of Irish Studies.

Méabh Ní Fhuartháin,(Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences) Co-ordinator, Joe Burke Archive Project, Centre for Irish Studies, NUIG.

Joe Burke at Gort Feis, 1955

Click to view the Joe Burke Music Archive 

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