Collection IFSR-257210 - ITMA Field and Studio Recordings

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]