Images from the Irish Traditional Music Archive

Shadow Dolls
Student dancers at the Belltable Arts Centre, Limerick, May 2008: photograph from a current exhibition at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick, by Maurice Gunning, photographer-in-residence at the Academy
A Moment of Leisure
A nineteenth-century Irish flute player c. 1888 in ‘The Schoolmaster’s Moment of Leisure’, a watercolour and gouache by the American artist Howard Helmick (1845–1907) in the collections of the National Gallery of Ireland
Tommy and Siobhán Peoples
Family music: Tommy and Siobhán Peoples at the Willie Clancy Summer School Fiddle Recital, Miltown Malbay, Co. Clare, 9 July 2007
The Irish Musical Monthly
Front cover (recto and verso) of the first issue of The Irish Musical Monthly, an early twentieth-century Dublin periodical
An Irish harper on the continent: William Archdeacon
An Irish harper on the continent: portrait of Cork merchant William Archdeacon with his family (c. 1750), from painting in private collection, Ghent.
Maggie Murphy
Traditional singer Maggie Murphy (second from left) at Slieve Gullion Festival of Traditional Singing, Mullaghbawn, Co Armagh, October 1993: from colour photo by Ken Garland, London. Photo © Ken Garland, courtesy Ken Garland & Irish Traditional Music Archive.
Monster Repeal Meeting
The Irish harp as national symbol at Daniel O’Connell’s Monster Repeal Meeting on Tara Hill, Co. Meath, 15 August 1843: engraving from The Illustrated London News (26 August 1843)
Ronnie Drew & The Dubliners
Ronnie Drew (right), Luke Kelly (seated), Ciarán Burke, & Barney McKenna on the cover of the first of some fifty original long-playing records (and hundreds of reissues) by the Dubliners group, Transatlantic TRA 116, issued 1964. Photo and design Brian Shuel.
Uilleann Pipers at Bettystown
Meeting of Uilleann Pipers, Neptune Hotel, Bettystown, Co. Meath, 7 April 1968. Photographer unknown.
Harry Bradshaw
Harry Bradshaw, recipient of the ‘Gradam na gCeoltóirí’ award of the TG4 Television Gradaim Ceoil 2008, in an RTÉ radio studio 1992. Photo by RTÉ photographer John Rowe.
Black Raven Pipe and Drum Band
Black Raven Pipe and Drum Band, Lusk, Co Dublin, at Killarney Oireachtas, July 1914. Photo by Cork Examiner photographer.
Seosamh Ó hÉanaí & Tom Clancy
Galway traditional singer Seosamh Ó hÉanaí (centre) with, possibly, a relative (first right); Tom Clancy of the Clancy Brothers singing group (?) (first left); and, possibly, a neighbour of Ó hÉanaí’s. Photograph seemingly taken in Connemara in the 1970s,
Seamus Ennis, Peadar Mercier, Dan O’Dowd & Proinnsias Ní Dhorchaí
Seamus Ennis, uilleann pipes (second from right), with Peadar Mercier, bodhrán; Dan O’Dowd, uilleann pipes; and (?) Proinnsias Ní Dhorchaí, flute; by river Liffey, c. late 1970s, photographer unknown.
Tommy Makem (1932-2007)
Publicity photo of Armagh professional singer, instrumentalist and songwriter Tommy Makem with American five-string banjo, c. 1969
Tom Munnelly at the Willie Clancy Summer School, Miltown Malbay, Clare, 1980
Traditional-song collector Tom Munnelly (second, left) with Clare traditional singers Tom Lenihan, Miltown Malbay; Kate Droney, Ballyvaughan; Martin Reidy, Connolly; and Michael ‘Straighty’ Flanagan, Inagh, at the Willie Clancy Summer School, Miltown...
Siobhán Ní Laoire at the Sean-nós Cois Life Traditional Singing Festival, 1993
Dublin singer Siobhán Ní Laoire at an event of the Sean-Nós Cois Life Traditional Singing Festival on 2 April 1993 in the Góilín Club at the Ferryman, Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Dublin 2, with fellow-singers Clíona Ní Shúilleabháin, Áine uí Cheallaigh, and Frank Harte. Photograph by Dublin singer Luke Cheevers
'Goldsmith on his Travels'
A musically unreliable nineteenth-century mezzotint depicting the Longford poet, novelist and dramatist Oliver Goldsmith (1728–74) on the Continet. The engraving, by W. Greatbach, is of a painting by the noted English artist Edward Matthew Ward (1816–79).Goldmith...
The group Seachtar, 1974
The group Seachtar, which within a year or two and with some change of personnel would become internationally famous as the Bothy Band.
Drawing of John Loughran (1927–87) by Eamonn O'Doherty
Drawing made 14 July 1977 by artist Eamonn O’Doherty of fiddle-player and raconteur John Loughran in his home in Pomeroy, Co. Tyrone – from the Irish Traditional Music Archive travelling exhibition ‘The Northern Fiddler’.
Traditional Singer and Songmaker Eddie Butcher (1900–80)
TRADITIONAL SINGER AND SONGMAKER EDDIE BUTCHER (1900-80) FROM MAGILLIGAN, NORTH CO. DERRY, SINGING AT FÉILE NA BÓINNE, DROGHEDA, 1977