Mick O’Brien (uilleann pipes/flute/whistle), Emer Mayock (flute/whistle) and Aoife Ní Bhriain (fiddle) have completed a recording entitled Tunes from the Goodman Manuscripts. As the title suggests the music is drawn from collection made by Canon James Goodman in the mid-nineteenth century in his native province of Munster.

Peter Browne of RTÉ Radio invited O’Brien and Mayock to take part in a documentary entitled Tunes of the Munster Pipers (named after Dr Hugh Shields’ edition of Goodman’s manuscripts), but it was only when Ní Bhriain joined in for a performance at the National Concert Hall in 2009 ‘that we decided to explore the music further and to venture the present recording’.

As the musicians point out, the manuscripts provide ‘unique insights into the evolution of Irish traditional music and are of great significance because they preserve much of the traditional music of the south of Ireland as it was sung and played in the years before traditional culture there was devastated by the Great Famine of the 1840s.’

For this recording, O’Brien, Mayock and Ní Bhriain have chosen both unusual versions of tunes already established in the modern repertoire and others apparently unique to the Goodman collection.

The CD will be officially released on 15 February 2013 and is available at claddaghrecords.com.

The trio will perform music from the recording throughout the coming year, with concerts confirmed to date at the Seamus Ennis Centre, The Naul on 16 February; Glor, Ennis on 16 March; and The Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar on 20 June.

The tracks are as follows:

1. An Róguire Dubh, Airgiod Caillighe (The Old)
2. An Seanduine Ag Luasgadh An Chliabháin, Cosa Buidhe Árda Dearga
3. Reel 97, The Tinker’s Frolic, Light Horse Reel
4. An Fhinne-Bhean Mhodhamhuil, Hornpipe 139, Hartney’s Hornpipe (O’Lynne’s March)
5. Miss Monaghan’s Reel, Neil Gow’s Second Wife, Lucy Campbell
6. Siobháinín Seó, Boring The Leather
7. The Black Bird
8. An Maidrín Ruadh
9. Ceó Draoigheachta Sheól Oidhche Chum Fághain Mé
10. The Traveller, The Top Of The Cliff, The Bride’s To Bed
11. Fáinne Geal An Lae, The Cauliflower, Kissing & Drinking
12 The Yeoman’s Reel, The Lady’s Cup Of Tea