User:Cliona Lenehan

Topic: Music in Ireland

Traditional Irish Music is known.The harp is best known of all the traditional Irish instruments and was most dominant from the Tenth to the Seventeenth Centuries. In the Nineteenth Century it evolved into the Neo-Irish Harp which, in structure, is much like that of the classical concert harp. Before the Seventeenth Century, the harp tradition was at its height and all the harpists were professional musicians. today throughout the world. It is an oral tradition and its prolific nature has captured the attention of listeners everywhere.

As the 1900’s were to become known as the traditional music revival, the 1970’s were to earn the title the golden age of traditional music, and not without good reason, for it was in this decade that the music saw possibly its finest years in term of popularity and innovation.

Probably the most obvious development was the bemusement of influences such as contemporary, American and European folk, into traditional music and with the arrival of the group Planxty in 1972, a new sound had emerged. The arrangements of pure traditional music in folk and ballad style, played with the virtuosity of Liam O’Flynn’s uilleann piping, along with the intricately captivating bouzouki, mandolin and guitar accompaniment, created a sound that was to prove them as the leader in a new musical movement, and to play a vital part in the inspiration for many groups,too numerous to mention here, that formed around this time. They were the prototype for what was to be arguably the most influential and ground-breaking band during the period and possibly to date for it was the Planxty man, Donal Lunny, who in 1975 formed The Bothy Band. This professional group, characterised by a powerful core of pipes, flute and fiddle with a driving rhythmic accompaniment, not unlike that of rock music, played on bouzouki, guitar and clavichord, achieved one of the most exciting combinations of traditional music talents ever gathered. Their greater use of harmony and occasional interdependence of instruments: their more intricate use of O’Riada’s model of arrangement: their professional rock-group like approach to performance and mainly their master musicianship and explosive sound, all served to win them the imagination of a new generation the world over.