A review from the Journal of Music – Trá Pháidín at Stiúideo Cuan on 11 July.
Peadar-Tom Mercier is kneeling with his electric guitar, holding a book in Irish, musing to himself. He drops a comment about the housing crisis – the short-hand of a generation. The room is full. The stage is stretched to hold two drum kits either side.
What Ireland Can Teach the World About Music Toner Quinn The Journal of Music, 2024 ISBN: 9781739577407 (HB)
Writer, publisher, and fiddle player Toner Quinn has long championed the Irish music industry, leading and facilitating discussion through his creation and editorialship of the Journal of Music. In his new book, Quinn brings together selections of his own writing in the Journal from 2000–2023. The essays cover a wide variety of topics from performance reviews to obituaries and to thoughtful opinion pieces that shed light on many aspects of Irish music over the last two decades. The book offers a unique retrospective on a tumultuous period in Irish music history: a thoughtful, critical, wide-ranging exploration that will serve both as a primary source for future historians and, hopefully, as a starting point for further discussion.
On 9 May 2025, I gave the keynote talk at ‘Cruinniú na Ceirde: Unravelling an identity for Irish Craft’, a gathering of the Irish craft community in Dublin. The title of my talk was ‘What Ireland Can Teach the World About Music’. The event was hosted by the RDS and a report on the day has now been published, with the following comments:
“People were deeply engaged with Toner’s concepts. There was electricity in the room. There was a sense of something being unlocked during the presentation, many sensations and recognisable emotional connections aligned with the making of craft. Echoes of identity that are shared with creating music and creating objects with our hands and minds, moved through the crowd. There was a recognition in how our practice is so firmly embedded in our lives, that when it is misused or exploited, it affects us profoundly. There were moments of connection, learning and mutual respect during this presentation.
“The presentation, in the words of outgoing arts committee chair, Marie Bourke, ‘was a revelation and an inspiration’. It challenged the community to think deeply about the correlations with craft and Irish music. When issues of renewing or protecting cultural heritage are discussed, the inevitable question of power and ownership arises: Who determines what heritage should be protected and what should be renewed?
To mark the publication of ‘The Radical Thinking of Desmond Fennell’ on 6 June, Journal of Music Editor Toner Quinn reflects on his experiences working with the writer and their correspondence over almost twenty years.
A few years before Desmond Fennell passed away on 16 July 2021, he wrote to me and asked me to be one of his literary executors. I had begun publishing articles by Desmond in 2000 and, a year later, edited a collection of essays about his life and work. This was followed by publishing his part-memoir, The Turning Point: My Sweden Year and After, and, two years later, his pamphlet, Savvy and the Preaching of the Gospel.
After a failed IT project costing €6.675 million and the departure of Director Maureen Kennelly, the Arts Council faces a crisis of trust and direction. What does it mean for those who work in the sector?
It has been a difficult week for the Arts Council. With the stepping down of Maureen Kennelly on Wednesday, it has lost a Director who had a deep understanding of what it is like to work in the arts, and on Thursday, its senior staff and Chair were questioned by the Public Accounts Committee for over three hours regarding the failed IT system that has now cost €6.675 million.
The controversy surrounding the Irish rap band has obscured deeper questions about power, conflict and resistance, but they won’t go away. (Article first published in the Journal of Music on 30 April.)
RTÉ Culture has published a piece about The Radical Thinking of Desmond Fennell, a new book that I have co-edited with Jerry White. Read the news piece here. Pre-order the book here.
Screening to take place on Sunday 4 May at 1.30pm. Book here.
The Irish Film Institute (IFI) has announced that it will host a special screening of Cinegael Paradiso, directed by Robert Quinn, on Sunday 4 May at 1.30pm. The event marks the publication of Count Me Out: Selected Writings of Filmmaker Bob Quinn, the new collection published by Boluisce Press and edited by Toner Quinn.
Tickets for the screening are available now at www.ifi.ie.
Toner Quinn 