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.
Continue readingTag Archives: poetry
A Letter from the Editor on the 25th Anniversary of The Journal of Music
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.
Continue readingA Review of ‘What Ireland Can Teach the World About Music’ in Ethnomusicology Ireland
Review by Kara Shea O’Brien, University of Limerick, in Ethnomusicology Ireland, Issue 10, 2025. https://www.ictmd.ie/ethnomusicology-ireland-10
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.
Continue readingSpeech at Launch of Count Me Out: Selected Writings of Filmmaker Bob Quinn
Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop, 15 February 2025
Sula gcríochnaíonn muid suas ba mhaith liom cúpla focal a rá agus mo bhuíochas a ghabháil le cúpla duine.
Sa gcéad dul síos, gabhaim buíochas do Stephen Rea. Stephen, it has really made it a very special occasion to have you here with us this evening. I know Bob really appreciates it, all of our family appreciate it, and I am sure everyone here does too. Go raibh míle maith agat. I also want to thank my sister, Hannah – who was nominated for an IFTA last night at the awards in Dublin! – and who worked with Stephen on the series The Stranger on Netflix. Thank you Hannah for bringing Stephen down today.
Ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil le Vinny Browne agus an fhoireann ar fad anseo i Charlie Byrne’s. Vinny has been a terrific supporter of Bob’s work, and my own writing and publishing too. We’re so lucky to have Charlie Byrne’s in Galway. I don’t know what we would do without it, so thank you to Vinny and all the staff for hosting this event.
Continue readingThis is the Arts Council’s ‘RTÉ Moment’ and Serious Change Must Follow
The Arts Council has written off €5.3m on ‘substandard work’ and an IT system that was ‘not fit for purpose’ while artists try to make ends meet. This has to be the beginning of real change, writes Toner Quinn. [Article irst published in the Journal of Music on 13 February 2025]
There were many surprising and infuriating aspects to the Arts Council’s announcement yesterday, in which it sketched out how it spent €6.675m and then wrote off €5.3m on a new grants management system that never worked, but few satisfactory explanations.
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 readingAn Sean-nós mar Éiceachóras
Píosa cainte a thug mé ag an oscailt oifigiúil do Fhéile Joe Éinniú 2024 (Áras na hOllscoile, Carna, 3 Bealtaine 2024).
Dia dhaoibh a chairde, agus go raibh míle maith agat a Mhíchíl agus an coiste ar fad as ucht an gcuireadh a bheith anseo anocht. Is mór an onóir dom.
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Toner Quinn 