Showing 26 results

Authority record
Corporate body

The Chieftains, 1962-2021

  • IE ITMA C00077
  • Corporate body
  • 1962-2021

The Chieftains were formed in 1962 when Garech Browne, owner of Claddagh Records, invited uilleann piper Paddy Moloney to form a group to record a once off album. The original members of the group were Paddy Moloney (uilleann pipes and tin whistle), Martin Fay (fiddle), Seán Potts (tin whistle), Michael Tubridy (flute) and David Fallon (bodhrán). The Chieftains the group’s first album was published by Claddagh Records in 1963. Seán Keane (fiddle) joined the band shortly after the release of their first album and in 1966 Peadar Mercier replaced David Fallon on bodhrán. The group went on to release two albums The Chieftains 2 (1969) and The Chieftains 3 (1971) with this line-up of musicians. Derek Bell met The Chieftains in 1972 and began his performance and recording career with the group in that year. The group continued to tour and record and three more albums followed The Chieftains 4 (1973), the soundtrack to Stanley Kubrick’s film Barry Lyndon (1975) and The Chieftains 5 (1975). In 1975 the group turned professional after a very successful concert in the Royal Albert Hall in London. In the early years of their professional career, from 1975 to 1977, The Chieftains were managed by impresario Jo Lustig who organised a number of international tours to the United Kingdom, North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Peadar Mercier retired from the group in 1976 and was replaced by Kevin Conneff who sang and played the bodhrán. The Chieftains’ sixth album, Bonaparte’s retreat (1976) was released in the same year and was the first to feature Conneff’s bodhrán playing. It was also the first time singing featured on a Chieftains album with a guest appearance by a then seventeen year old Dolores Keane. Two more albums followed in 1977 and 1978, The Chieftains 7 (1977) and The Chieftains 8 (1978). In 1979 both Michael Tubridy and Seán Potts decided to leave the band due to the strains of international travel. Tubridy went back to his job as an engineer and Potts to his job in the post office. Tubridy was replaced by flute player Matt Molloy in 1979 and this addition to the band was to be the final change in line-up until the death of Derek Bell in 2002. The first Chieftains album to feature this new line up was Boil the breakfast early: Chieftains 9 which was released in 1979.

The Chieftains continued to record extensively throughout the 1980s, 1990s and into the new millennium with nine albums released in the 1980s, fourteen in the 1990s and between the years 2000 and 2012 another seven albums were released.

The Chieftains have performed all over the world and for many famous individuals including American presidents, royalty and Pope John Paul II. They have also collaborated with numerous musical personalities including Van Morrison, Sinéad O’Connor, The Rolling Stones, Luciano Pavarotti and many more. In 1983 The Chieftains famously toured China and were one of the first Western groups to perform on the Great Wall. This tour also saw them collaborate with Chinese musicians and resulted in their 1984 recording The Chieftains in China.

The Chieftains have received major recording and entertainment awards over the years. Their first award was a Canadian Genie in 1983 for film music for The grey fox . They were nominated for thirteen Grammy awards in total and won six during their most prolific recording period - two in 1993 for An Irish evening and Another country , one in 1994 for The Celtic harp , one in 1996 for Have I told you lately , one in 1997 for Santiago and one in 1998 for Long journey home .

Boys of Ballisodare Folk Festival

  • IE ITMA C00112
  • Corporate body
The Boys of Ballisodare was a Sligo-based folk music festival that ran from 1977-1982. Founded by two brothers, Kevin and Philip Flynn, the festival was the first outdoor festival in Ireland to follow the

Athena Media

  • IE ITMA C00077
  • Corporate body
Athena Media is a digital agency based in Dublin that creates multimedia content and strategy.

Irish Traditional Music Archive

  • IE ITMA C00010
  • Corporate body
  • 1987-
Irish Traditional Music Archive (ITMA). (Taisce Cheol Dúchais Éireann). A national public archive and resource centre for all with an interest in the contemporary and historical art forms of Irish traditional song, instrumental music and dance. It was founded in 1987 with the primary aims of collecting, preserving and organising the materials of Irish traditional music, and of making these materials and related information as widely available as feasible to the general public. The Archive documents performers and performances of Irish traditional music within the island of Ireland, among the Irish Diaspora, and among non-Irish Irvine, Andy 364 performers worldwide, and it also collects representative materials on other national music traditions, especially those most closely linked to Ireland.
multimedia. The Archive now holds the largest multimedia collection in existence of the materials of Irish traditional music: currently over 90,000 items – commercial and non-commercial sound recordings, books and serials, ballad sheets and items of sheet music, programmes and flyers, manuscripts, photographs and other images, videotapes and DVDs, melodies in digital form – and a mass of other materials such as posters and artefacts. It also holds the largest body in existence of information about the music – over 500,000 content items – organised on unique computer catalogues.
access. The materials and information held are made fully available for reference to all visitors to the Archive, free of charge. Current opening hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday, and one Saturday each month. Guidance to the collections is given, and general information and consultancy on the music, in English and Irish. An information service is also provided directly by phone, post and fax and through the internet, and remotely through exhibitions and publications. These publications include seminal volumes on the historic Edward Bunting and James Goodman manuscript collections. Materials and information are also disseminated by the Archive through its extensive co-operation with the performing, teaching, broadcasting, publishing and archival activities of others, including RTÉ Radio and Television, TG4 Television, the Journal of Music, Na Píobairí Uilleann, the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum, Gael Linn, Viva Voce Recordings, etc. It is a member of many international and national archive and library networks.
staff. The Archive currently has a core staff of ten, with other part-time workers. Its operations are directed by a board of twelve with performing, collecting, broadcasting, archival, financial, marketing and management experience. Users of the Archive include singers, musicians, dancers, private-interest visitors, students at all levels, teachers, researchers and writers, librarians, broadcasters and publishers, arts administrators and the general public, a significant number of whom come from abroad.
funding. This is received from the Arts Council/ An Chomhairle Ealaíon in Dublin and also from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland in Belfast, and from individual donors, especially through its support group Friends of the Irish Traditional Music Archive. It receives project funding from sponsors such as the Heritage Council, Cairde na Cruite, the Temple Bar Cultural Trust, the Ireland Newfoundland Partnership, and Enterprise Ireland, and it receives support in kind from publishers. It has been enabled to grow to its present flourishing state by the support of hundreds of private donors of materials and information, notably by private field collectors who have generously donated their collections for the benefit of the traditional music community. The Archive is a company limited by guarantee, and as such keeps audited accounts and makes annual returns to the Companies Office. It is also recognised by the Revenue Commissioners as a charity.
location. Since 2006 the Archive has occupied new premises at 73 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, a heritage building allocated to it by the state through the Office of Public Works. It has there public rooms equipped for listening to, viewing, reading and studying items from the collections and accessing its databases; an audio and video recording studio; specialist rooms for the preservation, processing, copying and cataloguing of audio, video and print materials; reception and administrative areas; and specialist storage areas.
web. Extensive detail on the ITMA, its collections, services and personnel, is on itma.ie. To mark its twenty-first anniversary, a programme was initiated to make the computerised catalogues and sample digitised materials available worldwide on the internet via this website. [NIC]
Results 1 to 10 of 26