comhrÁ ceoil

Irish Music and Dance Studies is central to teaching and research at the Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway, drawing on cognate disciplines of ethnomusicology, cultural history, spatial and cultural geography to expand the field of Irish Studies internationally.  There is a vibrant post-graduate research cluster in music and dance studies, a thread which also runs through the fabric of undergraduate teaching.

For a number of years now, a music and dance studies reading group, Comhrá Ceoil, has been meeting regularly as a forum for debate and discussion.

Comhrá Ceoil

Comhrá Ceoil draws together strands of research, discourse and practice in the field and encompasses a variety of research driven initiatives and events, both on and off campus.  It provides a robust but collegial environment to develop new ideas and revisit old paradigms of discussion on the matter of music, dance and Irishness.

Martin Reilly Lecture Series

Comhrá Ceo Comhrá Ceoil, supported by the Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway was pleased launch the Martin Reilly Lecture Series this year, with guest speakers Jimmy O’Brien Moran in February and Máire O’Keeffe in May. The series is dedicated to Martin Reilly, the celebrated East Galway uilleann piper, who left a rich musical legacy to generations of pipers. It offers an opportunity to researcher-practitioners in Irish traditional music and dance to present their research in a public forum and is reflective of the increasing interest in the study of these traditions.  The inaugural Martin Reilly Lecture took place on 21 February 2012, with piper Dr Jimmy O'Brien Moran as speaker.  Jimmy's illustrated talk, on Folk Music Collection in the West in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, drew a full house at the Galway City Library. Attendees were particularly lucky to hear Jackie Small's erudite comments, which launched the series before the lecture.  Jackie spoke of the importance of unsung heroes in Irish music revival, whose cultural initiatives created connections and influences which still have resonances today.  He spoke in particular of Patrick Nally from Balla, Co. Mayo, who's initial work in recognising the importance of piping and pipers, and his insistence on that tradition being nurtured and handed on, placed pipers such as Martin Reilly within today’s piping legacy.

Jimmy's lecture provided, among other things, a fascinating insight into the life of Paddy Conneely, piper of Galway, who drew music collectors from far and wide to hear him play.  Jimmy's parting tune, a rendition of Martin Reilly's 'The Conor Donn' was a fitting sonic launch to the series and created yet another connection in the web of music making and music talking in Galway. 

The second lecture took place on May 17^th, 2012 given by fiddle player Dr Máire O’Keeffe. In ’Journey into Tradition: The Irish Button Accordion’, Máire described how her curiosity in the accordion was piqued by the realization that a wide variety of accordions and tuning systems were used within the tradition, in sharp contrast to the fiddle. Making extensive use of primary material such as old newspaper advertisements, she pinpointed the arrival of the button accordion into Ireland to the year 1831. She traced its development through the hands of many of the players who have contributed to an identifiably Irish style of playing. She examined in particular the influence of 78rpm recordings made in America from the 1910s and indeed the role of the button accordion in Irish music-making in America along with its role in the progression of Irish music from domestic to public dance spaces and solo to ensemble playing. She demonstrated the wide variety of accordions and tuning systems that existed and their subsequent consolidation into two main systems today: B and C and C#D.

Galway is renowned as an important storehouse for traditional dance, music and song and the first two Martin Reilly lectures were illustrated with musical examples which ably demonstrated this. This assembly of researchers, practitioners and Irish music aficionados created a forum in which insights on the tradition from the practitioners’ perspective were both gleaned and explored. 

Plans are already afoot for next year’s series.  Further information on this and other planned talks in the series are available at http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Martin-Reilly-Lecture-Series/289147347801522 or
e-mail: Martinreillylectureseriesgmail.com
 
   

Symposium:  New Directions in Irish Music and Dance Studies

Comhrá Ceoil, supported by the Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway is pleased to host the first in a planned series of symposia in Irish Music and Dance Studies which will take place on 18th May 2012, at Martha Fox House, Distillery Road, NUI Galway. Researchers at the Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway and at the Irish World Academy of Music, UL, strategic partner universities, will present research in Irish Music and Dance Studies. Professor Harry White (UCD) will open proceedings and the keynote speaker is Dr Gerry Smyth (LJMU).

Programme

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