Remembering the great traditional musician and composer who passed away on 8 June.
When the sad news came that the great fiddle player, piano player and composer Charlie Lennon had passed away on 8 June, my mind turned to something that had happened just two evenings before and which I had, somehow, already been thinking about repeatedly.
Continue readingDoes Ireland have its own way of thinking about music? How might this perspective have developed? And could it explain the current dynamism in Irish musical life? In this essay, the edited text of a talk given at Farmleigh House on 11 May, Journal of Music Editor Toner Quinn explores these questions and more.
Almost four months ago, I published the book What Ireland Can Teach the World About Music, and I realise this title may sound presumptuous, but in reality every country has something to teach the world about music, because every country has its own history and musical traditions. Ireland, therefore, should have something that it can offer the world, particularly given the impact our music has had, and even if, publicly, we tend not to talk too much about what that might be.
Continue readingThis Saturday 11 May at 3pm at Farmleigh House in Dublin, I will be giving a talk exploring some of the ideas in my new book, What Ireland Can Teach the World About Music.
Please see booking details here: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/toner-quinn-what-ireland-can-teach-the-world-about-music-tickets-839964114277
Best wishes/Le gach dea-ghuí,
Toner
The national news cycle has already moved on: a brief appearance by Kneecap on Morning Ireland, followed by Soda Blonde on The Tonight Show and Newstalk, but apart from some coverage by what remains of the music press, the public discussion about the SXSW protest by Irish bands over Palestine has all but ended. We have become used to the conveyor belt nature of the news ticker and don’t expect more. It would be convenient for Ireland’s official agencies if the issues at the heart of the protest also went away once the bands came home, but they won’t.
Palestine has become a flashpoint for the frustration of a generation, the high end of a line of grievances and clearly where their patience has run out. Ten Irish bands refused to play at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, because they learnt that it was being sponsored by the US Army and US arms manufacturers. The slaughter in Palestine, enabled by these entities, made the thought of performing in such a context ‘abhorrent’, as Faye O’Rourke of Soda Blonde said.
Continue readingAn Leabhragán/The Bookcase
What Ireland Can Teach the World About Music, and Other Essays
Toner Quinn (The Journal of Music, 2024)
This new book on Irish music has been a quarter of a century in the making. The fifty or so essays and articles are drawn from Toner Quinn’s work as editor of The Journal of Music in Ireland, first published in print form in 2000, now entirely online since 2010. Quinn saw that there was no real public discourse about music in Ireland; all Irish music, not just classical, jazz, traditional, or popular music. There have been separate forums for all of these. But where was the discussion about what it means to be an Irish musician of any kind in Ireland today? Toner Quinn saw a space for this discussion and created it. Twenty-four years later, the magazine has become a respected and valued place for musicians, composers, collaborators , organizers and listeners to discuss and inform on the topic of Irish music. Many subjects, some of them controversial, have come up: what, exactly, is trad music? How is its practice different from two or three generations ago? How do we value an art form which has been highly praised publicly, but underfunded and underpaid to those who create the music? What classical music is being created and performed in Ireland? How about jazz, collaborative works between classical and traditional artists, experimental music?
Continue readingSee a news item from the Journal of Music on the launch of my new book below. The original is here.
A new book by Toner Quinn, What Ireland Can Teach the World About Music, has been launched by fiddle player Martin Hayes at the Irish Traditional Music Archive in Dublin.
A collection of writings on Irish music, the book contains more than fifty essays and articles drawn from Quinn’s work as Editor of the Journal of Music as well as a number of radio essays and public talks.
Continue readingThe five letters, written between 1906 and 1914, provide an insight into O’Neill’s perspective during his seminal publishing and collecting work.
Following the recent publication of his book The Cry of a People Gone: Irish Musicians in Chicago, 1920–2020, Chicago-based Irish music historian Richie Piggott has now published five previously unpublished letters written by the renowned collector Francis O’Neill.
The letters, written between 1906 and 1914, were sent to O’Neill’s friend and supporter, the fiddle player Patrick O’Leary, who was originally from County Cavan but emigrated to Adelaide, Australia, in 1876. The correspondence was given to Piggott by Judith O’Loughlin, great-granddaughter of O’Leary. Piggott has published the original letters with transcriptions on his website, http://www.richiepiggott.com.
Continue readingTG4 recently broadcast a new documentary marking 70 years of the Irish language and cultural organisation Gael Linn. Toner Quinn reviews.
This is a critical moment for Gael Linn and its relationship to traditional music. Despite its record label having a catalogue of over 300 recordings, plenty of them now classics, ten years ago Foras na Gaeilge designated the organisation’s future role as focusing on education. What then is going to happen to the label?
Gael Linn did not set out to be one of Ireland’s iconic record labels when it started out in 1953. The organisation was many things, all with the aim of revitalising the Irish language. It was when one of its founders, Riobard Mac Góráin, saw that more recordings of traditional music and song were needed for their sponsored Radio Éireann programme that they began issuing singles and albums. This initiative arrived at an extraordinary time. Seán Ó Riada and the folk revival were gathering momentum and Gael Linn was well positioned to meet demand. Their roster included everything from Ceoltóirí Chualann to Clannad. Mac Góráin ran that label for 43 years.
Continue readingOn 4 August 1991, at the famous Féile festival in Tipperary, I had never heard the Pogues live before. My friends and I had made the ‘Trip to Tipp’ to see the host of new British indie bands that had just swept the charts – The La’s, James, and the Wonder Stuff. It was a new sound that came with floppy hair, big shirts and moody dancing. We would fit right in.
Continue readingMy new book, ‘What Ireland Can Teach the World About Music’, will be published on 1 February 2024. Now available to pre-order. Full details: https://bit.ly/3uz7rGm
Toner Quinn 