Author Archives: Admin

‘I often feel our songwriters and composers are forgotten about in the AI debate. I want to put them front and centre’: An Interview with Catherine Martin on her New Role at the Ivors Academy

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First published on The Journal of Music in Ireland on 5 March 2026.

Former Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media Catherine Martin has been appointed Head of Policy, Ireland, with the Ivors Academy. In this interview with Toner Quinn, she discusses her new advocacy role for songwriters and composers, the challenges posed by AI, and the future of the Basic Income for the Arts.

It is just over 13 months since Catherine Martin lost her seat as a Green TD – which in turn ended her tenure as Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media as part of the last coalition government. In terms of arts ministries, her four and a half years in the role were the most consequential in a generation. 

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‘Cé muidne inniu?’ – Notes on a Residency at Stiúideo Cuan

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Something that I never anticipated happening when I started The Journal of Music in Ireland was that my playing identity would become subsumed by it. Before I wrote, I played, but when I began writing about music, when the phone would ring, suddenly it was to ask me to write about a concert rather than play at it. I began to suspect that, subconsciously, I had done this to myself.

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‘This was the furthest thing from my mind when I was writing this piece’: An Interview with Donnacha Dennehy about his Grammy Award-winning ‘Land of Winter’

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First published on The Journal of Music in Ireland on 12 February 2026.

A recording of ‘Land of Winter’, a work by Donnacha Dennehy performed by Alarm Will Sound and released on Nonesuch Records, received a Grammy Award on 1 February. In this interview, he speaks to Toner Quinn about the work and the award.

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Publishing is a Creative Process

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Whenever I read the letters or memoirs of publishers and editors past, I am struck by how many of the principles they used still apply. These principles are rarely articulated in full, or discussed publicly today, yet despite all the change, they endure – I have noticed them in my own publishing work too. For me, a key principle is that publishing is a creative process. The following essay explores a classic example.

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Review of Count Me Out in Cineaste magazine

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There is an extended review of Count Me Out: Selected Writings of Filmmaker Bob Quinn, which I recently published, in the current issue of Cineaste magazine. Written by Darragh O’Donoghue, the review opens with the following lines about my father’s work:

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The Late Late Out-of-Date Session

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First published on The Journal of Music on 12 January: https://journalofmusic.com/reviews/late-late-out-date-session

At the end of the Late Late Show Trad Special on RTÉ One on Friday evening (9 January), the host Patrick Kielty presented Dónal Lunny with the show’s inaugural Trad Music Hall of Fame Award. From the beginning of this now annual television special, a large group of fifteen renowned musicians had been playing and singing centre stage, and Lunny joined them for the final set, the reels ‘The Green Groves of Erin’ and ‘The Flowers of Red Hill’, from the Bothy Band’s first album. It was at this moment that the show redeemed itself. Celebrating Lunny is important, no matter if it’s for the second time, following his RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards Lifetime Achievement Award last year. The show ended on a high. 

But what had been happening up until then was troubling.

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An Evening of Music Scene Interviews

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Tomorrow at the Róisín Dubh in Galway (Friday 9 January, 6.30pm), I will be participating in Hope Collective and Irish Pop Archive’s ‘Document – An Evening of Music Scene Interviews’. Find out more here: https://roisindubh.net/listings/torann-document-2026-01-09-180000-80769

A Letter from the Editor on the 25th Anniversary of The Journal of Music

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The inaugural issue was published in the first week of November 2000.

Published in The Journal of Music on 4 November 2025.

Dear Reader,

Some of you have been with me since the beginning. For others, this may be the first piece you have read from this publication. For the past twenty-five years, The Journal of Music has been documenting and discussing music in Ireland. One never knows the impact of this work, and it is not easy in the current media environment, but I would be concerned were it not there.

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Catherine Connolly Was There for Artists When It Mattered – Heather Humphreys Was Not

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Published in The Journal of Music on Monday 13 October 2025.

In July 2014, Heather Humphreys was appointed Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. Six years after the economic crash, it remained a grim time for artists. The Arts Council budget had been cut for seven consecutive years, from €83m in 2007 to €56.7m in 2014 – a 32% drop and a complete stripping back of the arts and music ecosystem. A few months beforehand, the then Director of the Arts Council, Orlaith McBride, had said that, for artists, this period was about ‘a fundamental issue of survival’. 

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‘Count Me Out’ in Sight & Sound Magazine

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Count Me Out: Selected Writings of Filmmaker Bob Quinn, edited by Toner Quinn and published in February of this year, was selected as one of Sight & Sound magazine’s summer reading recommendations in the latest issue. Here’s what Reviews Editor Kate McCabe had to say:

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