Written from the perspective of a scholar and performer, Traditional Music and Irish Society investigates the relation of traditional music to Irish modernity. The opening chapter integrates a thorough survey of the early sources of Irish music with recent work on Irish social history in the eighteenth century to explore the question of the antiquity of the tradition and the class locations of its origins. Dowling argues in the second chapter that the formation of what is today called Irish traditional music occurred alongside the economic and political modernization of European society in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Dowling goes on to illustrate the public discourse on music during the Irish revival in newspapers and journals from the 1880s to the First World War, also drawing on the works of Pierre Bourdieu and Jacques Lacan to place the field of music within the public sphere of nationalist politics and cultural revival in these decades. The situation of music and song in the Irish literary revival is then reflected and interpreted in the life and work of James Joyce, and Dowling includes treatment of Joyce’s short stories A Mother and The Dead and the 'Sirens' chapter of Ulysses. Dowling conducted field work with Northern Irish musicians during 2004 and 2005, and also reflects directly on his own experience performing and working with musicians and arts organizations in order to conclude with an assessment of the current state of traditional music and cultural negotiation in Northern Ireland in the second decade of the twenty-first century.

"The Companion to Irish Traditional Music is not just the ideal reference for the interested enthusiast and session player, it also provides a unique resource for every library, school and home with an interest in the distinctive rituals, qualities and history of Irish traditional music and song."--BOOK JACKET.

The two southern most counties in Ireland, Cork and Kerry, have legendary music and dance traditions. on the border of these two counties, a rural area called Sliabh Luachra is especially well-known for its fiddle tunes and itinerant fiddle teachers. When speaking of this area's fiddle music, some describe a special lilt or backbeat, or they talk about the special role of set dances, but the most often expressed quality relates to the frequent use of slides and polkas. This book features transcriptions of 107 tunes as played by three of the region's most distinguished fiddlers: Pádraig O'Keeffe, Denis Murphy, and Connie O'Connell. Each fiddler is profiled, followed by a collection of meticulously transcribed tunes and annotations. an accompanying CD includes 30 of these tunes played solo by Connie O'Connell.

This history of folk music looks at musicians, collectors and other figures from around the world. The book presents an overview of international folk roots and shows the contributions of the artists and the evolution of folk music as a force for political and social change. Profiles of Pete Seeger, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie and others show how the stage was set for the American folk revival of the 1960s.