When Catherine Martin was appointed Minister for Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht in June 2020, three months into the pandemic, those working in music and the arts had become accustomed to low expectations.
Continue readingCategory Archives: The Journal of Music
‘Count Me Out: Selected Writings of Filmmaker Bob Quinn’ to be Published in February 2025
Next February 2025, I will publish a collection of my father’s writing, titled Count Me Out: Selected Writings of Filmmaker Bob Quinn.
Find out more here.
What’s Next for Irish Music?
What does the recent trajectory of the arts in Ireland – from Arts Council funding increases to the Basic Income pilot – mean for musicians? How can we further strengthen music across Ireland? And what do these developments mean for the tradition of the Irish harp? This is an edited version of the Harp Ireland/Cruit Éireann Annual Lecture, given by Toner Quinn on 17 November 2024 at the Royal Irish Academy of Music.
It is now ten years since I submitted the Report on the Harping Tradition in Ireland to the Arts Council in October 2014. Commissioned by the Council, it was a 96-page report with 14 recommendations for the future of the instrument in Ireland.
Continue readingA Report on My Lecture at Belfast
Below is a report by Robert McMillen of the Irish News on on my recent lecture at the Belfast International Arts Festival. The lecture was titled ‘How Ireland Thinks About Music’ and took place at the Oh Yeah Centre in Belfast on 9 November 2024.
Beyond the political: What Ireland can teach the world about music
by Robert McMillen
Above the cacophony that surrounds Irish traditional music – the endless debates about the “tradition”, the politics of it all, what purpose it serves, is it any good – one voice, it seems to me, rises above all the din: that of Toner Quinn.
Son of film-maker Bob Quinn, Toner is editor of the Journal of Music which was in print for 10 years and online for the past 14 but the Journal also publishes books including its latest, Toner’s own What Ireland Can Teach the World About Music.
As part of the Belfast International Arts Festival, the Conamara resident gave a talk on the book and what he has learnt since its publication last December and as usual, like all his articles, it raised many issues.
One of the reasons Toner started writing about music 25 years ago was because of the way music, particularly traditional Irish music, is often used in society.
Continue readingWhat Will the 2024 Election Mean for Music and the Arts?
Now that the US election is over, we can remind ourselves that we are not citizens of that country, and that all of the airtime it has taken up in Irish media is time not spent talking about what matters on the ground in Ireland.
For those in music and the arts, there is much to discuss, particularly now that a general election has been called for 29 November.
Continue readingUpcoming Talks and Lectures in Belfast, Armagh and Dublin
Hello all,
This is just a short note to let you know of some upcoming talks and lectures that I am giving. It would be great to see you at one of these events. Please see details below.
Saturday 9 November, 4pm @ Sounds of Belfast, Oh Yeah Centre – Illustrated Lecture: How Ireland Thinks About Music. Further information: https://belfastinternationalartsfestival.com/event/toner-quinn-how-ireland-thinks-about-music/
Saturday 16 November, 6.30pm @ William Kennedy Piping Festival, Armagh Robinson Library, Armagh – Illustrated Lecture: How Ireland Thinks About Music. Further information: https://armaghpipers.com/wkpf/programme/
Sunday 17 November, 6pm, Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin – Harp Ireland Annual Lecture 2024 – What’s Next for Irish Music?. Further information: https://www.harpireland.ie/harp-ireland-annual-lecture-2024/
A Glimpse into Irish Music in the 1980s and 90s
In 2011, a treasure trove of music and arts photos from the 1980s and 90s was rescued from a skip outside the offices of the Sunday Tribune newspaper in Dublin. Among the thousands of images were those documenting Ireland’s classical, jazz, pop, rock, theatre, dance and opera scenes. In this selection of 24 photos, we offer a glimpse into the musical life of Ireland during those decades.
The Sunday Tribune Photo Archive – An Introduction
In 2011 in Dublin city centre, Nicholas Carolan and Brian Doyle of the Irish Traditional Music Archive spotted a skip outside the offices of the Sunday Tribune. The newspaper was closing down and in the skip were thousands of photos in clearly labelled brown A4 envelopes. Carolan and Doyle and another staff member, Grace Toland, rescued the music and arts photos before the skip was taken away that day, stored the traditional music ones in the Archive, and suggested that I keep the others in case they could be used in the Journal of Music.
The photos cover classical, jazz, pop, rock, theatre, dance and opera in Ireland in the 1980s and 90s. In recent months, I finally had a chance to look through them all and have included here a selection of 24. Together, they provide a fascinating glimpse into musical life in the 1980s and 90s in Ireland. We plan to publish more selections in the future. Should you have further information about these photographs, please email editor@journalofmusic.com.
Continue reading30 Years of Questions in One Hour: An Interview with Martin Hayes
A recording of a public interview with fiddle player Martin Hayes, conducted by Journal of Music editor Toner Quinn at Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann 2024.
It is just over thirty years since I paused on my way out of J. McNeill’s music shop on Capel Street in Dublin to look at the tapes for sale. They were held in a tall, slender wooden case by the door with the most recent at the top. This is where I first came across Kíla’s Handel’s Fantasy as well as the re-release of Kevin Burke’s Sweeney’s Dream. On this day there was just one tape on the top shelf. The cover seemed purposefully blurred to represent motion and presented a musician standing holding the fiddle with the bow hanging from one finger. New tapes were not cheap for a student, but somehow I had precisely the right amount of money. On impulse, having never heard the name of the musician before, I bought it and jumped on the bus to Waterford.
Continue readingWhy We Need to Decentralise the Arts Council
The Arts Council has secured an unprecedented €140m in the government’s 2025 budget, but where will it be spent, asks Toner Quinn.
Recently I was asked to speak at an arts policy event in Dublin. The request came at short notice and so on the day I wrote down the thoughts that occurred to me. The first was this: in 25 years of attending round-table arts policy discussions, I always seem to be going in one direction: to Dublin.
In the past, this didn’t seem so incongruous. Dublin was somewhere everyone could get to, and the Arts Council and many of the arts and music organisations are based there. But something has shifted over the years, and it has sped up post-pandemic: artists have been getting out of the city because it is unaffordable, and yet all of the decisions that affect their lives still take place in the capital. This leads to a disconnect.
Continue readingA Review of ‘What Ireland Can Teach the World About Music’ in Sound Post magazine
What Ireland Can Teach the World about Music – and other essays
By Toner Quinn
Published by: The Journal of Music
Available from: https://journalofmusic.com/shop
Book Review
By David Agnew
Published in Sound Post magazine (published by the Musicians’ Union of Ireland), Autumn 2024. Visit https://mui.ie/
I like creative doers. People who do something different, find a way to set out their stall, for themselves as much as for everyone else to take part. Toner Quinn wanted a space for regular, thoughtful writing on music and culture in Ireland, to stimulate deeper intellectual debate, without being academic, and started it himself in 2000 through The Journal of Music. This book is a compilation of his writings in four sections on that journey. Initially in hard-copy to 2010, exclusively online from 2014, with a stark pandemic section 2020–2022, finishing with a list of impossible ideas for the future, all of which are entirely reasonable, if utopian.
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Toner Quinn 