The most common instruments used in Irish traditional dance music, whose history goes back several hundred years, are the fiddle, tin whistle,
flute and
Uilleann pipes. Instruments such as button
accordion and
concertina made their appearances in Irish traditional music late in the 19th century. The 4-string tenor
banjo, first used by Irish musicians in the US in the 1920s, is now fully accepted. The guitar was used as far back as the 1930s first appearing on some of the recordings of Michael Coleman and his contemporaries. The
bouzouki only entered the traditional Irish music world in the late 1960s. The word
bodhrán, indicating a drum, is first mentioned in a translated English document in the 17th century. The saxophone featured in recordings from the early 20th century most notably in Paddy Killoran's Pride of Erin Orchestra.
Cèilidh bands of the 1940s often included a drum set and stand-up bass as well as saxophones. Traditional harp-playing died out in the late 18th century, and was revived by the McPeake Family of Belfast,
Derek Bell,
Mary O'Hara and others in the mid-20th century. Although often encountered, it plays a fringe role in Irish Traditional dance music. The piano is commonly used for accompaniment. In the early 20th century, piano accompaniment was prevalent on the 78 rpm records featuring Michael Coleman, James Morrison, John McKenna, PJ Conlon and many more. On many of these recordings, the piano accompaniment was woeful because the backers were unfamiliar with Irish music. However, Morrison avoided using the studio piano players and hand-picked his own. The vamping style used by these piano backers has largely remained. There has been a few recent innovators such as Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, Brian McGrath, Liam Bradley, Josephine Keegan, Ryan Molloy and others.
Fiddle (violin) One of the most important instruments in the traditional repertoire, the fiddle (almost always a violin used in a fiddle style) is played differently in widely varying regional styles. It uses the standard GDAE tuning. The best-known regional fiddling traditions are from Counties
Donegal,
Sligo,
Clare as well as
Sliabh Luachra. The fiddle has ancient roots in Ireland, although any reference to a fiddle before the 16th century would have been to an instrument distinct from the modern
violin, as the modern violin was invented in 16th-century northern Italy. The earliest reference to the fiddle in Ireland was during the 7th century by O'Curry. In 1674,
Richard Head wrote in reference to Ireland 'On Sundays: In every field a fiddle, and the girls footing until they foam up' suggesting that the modern fiddle was already present in Ireland. Reference to the Irish fiddle can also be found in John Dunton's
Teague Land: or A Merry Ramble to the Wild Irish (1698). He said "on Sundays and Holydays, all the people resorted with the piper and fiddler to the village green". When
Thomas Dineley visited Ireland in 1680 he said in regards to music that people "with piper, harper, or fiddler, revell and dance the night throughout". There's a 17th-century reference to children in Cork being taught the Irish fiddle. When the fiddle was being mass-produced in Ireland, as opposed to more local makers, starting in Dublin with the likes of
Thomas Perry (luthier),
Thomas Molineux (luthier) and John Neal, they heavily based their craft on the English violin makers. Most were imported into Dublin from England. An instrument excavated during the 18th century in Dublin that was dated from the 11th century was made of dogwood with an animal carved on its tip. It was believed to have been the oldest bow in the world even though it is still unclear what instrument the bow belonged to. There may also be a reference to the Irish fiddle in the book of Leinster (ca. 1160). The fiddling tradition of
Sligo is perhaps most recognisable to outsiders, due to the popularity of American-based performers like
Michael Coleman,
James Morrison and
Paddy Killoran. These fiddlers did much to popularise Irish music in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. Other Sligo fiddlers included Martin Wynne and
Fred Finn. Notable fiddlers from Clare include
Mary Custy,
Paddy Canny,
Patrick Kelly,
Peadar O'Loughlin, and
Martin Hayes.
Donegal has produced
James Byrne,
John Doherty, and
Tommy Peoples. Sliabh Luachra, a small area between Counties
Kerry and
Cork, is known for
Julia Clifford, her brother
Denis Murphy,
Sean McGuire,
Paddy Cronin and
Padraig O'Keeffe. Contemporary fiddlers from Sliabh Luachra include
Matt Cranitch and Connie O'Connell. Modern performers include
Kevin Burke,
Máire Breatnach,
Matt Cranitch,
Paddy Cronin,
Frankie Gavin,
Paddy Glackin,
Cathal Hayden,
Martin Hayes,
Peter Horan,
Sean Keane,
Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh,
Máiréad Nesbitt,
Gerry O'Connor,
Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh,
Dónal O'Connor and
Paul O'Shaughnessy. There have been many notable fiddlers from United States in recent years such as
Winifred Horan,
Brian Conway,
Liz Carroll, and
Eileen Ivers.
Flute and whistle The flute has been an integral part of Irish traditional music since roughly the middle of the 19th century, when art musicians largely abandoned the wooden simple-system flute (having a conical bore, and fewer keys) for the metal
Boehm system flutes of present-day classical music. Factory-made whistles started to be manufactured in Manchester in 1840, and the Feadóg Irish tin whistle was the most popular mass-produced model in Ireland. Although the choice of the Albert-system, wooden flute over the metal, was initially driven by the fact that being "outdated" castoffs, the old flutes were available cheaply second-hand. The wooden instrument has a distinct sound and continues to be commonly preferred by traditional musicians to this day. A number of players—
Joanie Madden being perhaps the best known—use the
Western concert flute, but many others find that the simple system flute best suits traditional fluting. Original flutes from the pre-Boehm era continue in use, but since the 1960s a number of craftspeople have revived the art of wooden flute making. Some flutes are even made of
PVC; these are especially popular with new learners and as travelling instruments, being both less expensive than wooden instruments and far more resistant to changes in humidity. The
tin whistle or metal whistle, which with its nearly identical fingering might be called a cousin of the simple-system flute, is also popular. It was mass-produced in 19th century Manchester England, as an inexpensive instrument. Clarke whistles almost identical to the first ones made by that company are still available, although the original version, pitched in C, has mostly been replaced for traditional music by whistles pitched in D, the "basic key" of traditional music. The other common design consists of a
barrel made of seamless tubing fitted into a plastic or wooden
mouthpiece. Skilled craftspeople make fine custom whistles from a range of materials including not only aluminium, brass, and steel tubing but synthetic materials and tropical hardwoods. Despite this, more than a few longtime professionals stick with ordinary factory made whistles. Irish schoolchildren are generally taught the rudiments of playing on the tin whistle, just as school children in many other countries are taught the soprano recorder. At one time the whistle was thought of by many traditional musicians as merely a sort of "beginner's flute", but that attitude has disappeared in the face of talented whistlers such as
Mary Bergin, whose classic early seventies recording
Feadóga Stáin (with bouzouki accompaniment by
Alec Finn) is often credited with revolutionising the whistle's place in the tradition. The
low whistle, a derivative of the common tin whistle, is also popular, although some musicians find it less agile for session playing than the flute or the ordinary D whistle. Notable present-day flute-players (sometimes called 'flautists' or 'fluters') include
Matt Molloy,
Kevin Crawford,
Peter Horan,
Michael McGoldrick, Desi Wilkinson, Conal O'Grada, James Carty, Emer Mayock,
Joanie Madden,
Michael Tubridy and
Catherine McEvoy, while whistlers include
Paddy Moloney,
Carmel Gunning,
Paddy Keenan,
Seán Ryan,
Andrea Corr,
Mary Bergin, Packie Byrne and Cormac Breatnach.
Uilleann pipes playing uilleann pipes Uilleann pipes (pronounced
ill-in or
ill-yun) are a complex instrument. Tradition holds that seven years learning, seven years practising and seven years playing is required before a piper could be said to have mastered his instrument. The uilleann pipes developed around the beginning of the 18th century, the history of which is depicted in carvings and pictures from contemporary sources in both Britain and Ireland as
pastoral and union pipes. Its modern form had arrived by the end of the 18th century, and was played by
gentlemen pipers such as the mid-18th century piper Jackson from Limerick and the
Tandragee pipemaker William Kennedy, the Anglican clergyman
Canon James Goodman (1828–1896) and his friend John Hingston from
Skibbereen. These were followed in the 20th century by the likes of
Séamus Ennis,
Leo Rowsome and
Willie Clancy, playing refined and ornate pieces, as well as showy, ornamented forms played by travelling pipers like John Cash and
Johnny Doran. The uilleann piping tradition had nearly died before being re-popularized by the likes of
Paddy Moloney (of
the Chieftains), and the formation of
Na Píobairí Uilleann, an organisation open to pipers that included such players as Rowsome and Ennis, as well as researcher and collector
Breandán Breathnach.
Liam O'Flynn is one of the most popular of modern performers along with
Paddy Keenan,
Davy Spillane,
Jerry O'Sullivan, and
Mick O'Brien. Many
Pavee (Traveller) families, such as the Fureys and Dorans and Keenans, are famous for the pipers among them. Uilleann pipes are among the most complex forms of
bagpipes; they possess a
chanter with a double
reed and a two-octave range, three single-reed drones, and, in the complete version known as a full set, a trio of (
regulators) all with double reeds and keys worked by the piper's forearm, capable of providing harmonic support for the melody. (Virtually all uilleann pipers begin playing with a half set, lacking the regulators and consisting of only bellows, bag, chanter, and drones. Some choose never to play the full set, and many make little use of the regulators.) The bag is filled with air by a
bellows held between the piper's elbow and side, rather than by the performer's lungs as in the
highland pipes and almost all other forms of bagpipe, aside from the
Scottish smallpipes,
Pastoral pipes (which also plays with regulators), the
Northumbrian pipes of northern England, and the
Border pipes found in both parts of the Anglo-Scottish Border country. The uilleann pipes play a prominent part in a form of instrumental music called Fonn Mall, closely related to unaccompanied singing
an sean nós ("in the old style").
Willie Clancy,
Leo Rowsome, and
Garret Barry were among the many pipers famous in their day;
Paddy Keenan and
Davy Spillane play these traditional airs today, among many others.
Harp The harp is among the chief symbols of Ireland. The Celtic harp, seen on Irish coinage and used in Guinness advertising, was played as long ago as the 10th century. In ancient times, the harpers were greatly respected and, along with poets and scribes, assigned a high place amongst the most significant retainers of the old Gaelic order of lords and chieftains. Perhaps the best known representative of this tradition of harping today is
Turlough Ó Carolan, a blind 18th century harper who is often considered the unofficial national composer of Ireland.
Thomas Connellan, a slightly earlier County Sligo harper, composed such well known airs as "
The Dawning of the Day"/"Raglan Road" and "Carolan's Dream". , harper, by
Hill & Adamson (1845),
calotype print,
Scottish National Gallery The native Irish harping tradition was an aristocratic art music with its own canon and rules for arrangement and compositional structure, only tangentially associated with the folkloric music of the common people which is the ancestor of present-day Irish traditional music. Some of the late exponents of the harping tradition, such as O'Carolan, were influenced by the Italian Baroque art music of such composers as Vivaldi, which could be heard in the theatres and concert halls of Dublin. The harping tradition did not long outlast the native Gaelic aristocracy which supported it. By the early 19th century, the Irish harp and its music were, for all intents and purposes, dead. Tunes from the harping tradition survived only as unharmonised melodies which had been picked up by the folkloric tradition or were preserved as notated in collections such as
Edward Bunting's (he attended the
Belfast Harp Festival in 1792) in which the tunes were most often modified to make them fit for the drawing room pianofortes of the Anglicised middle and upper classes. The first generations of 20th century revivalists mostly played the gut-strung (frequently replaced with nylon after the Second World War) neo-Celtic harp with the pads of their fingers rather than the old brass-strung harp plucked with long fingernails. They tended to take the dance tunes and song airs of Irish traditional music, along with such old harp tunes as they could find, and applied to them techniques derived from the orchestral (pedal) harp and an approach to rhythm, arrangement, and tempo that often had more in common with mainstream classical music than with either the old harping tradition or the living tradition of Irish music. A separate Belfast tradition of harp-accompanied folk-singing was preserved by the McPeake Family. In present day, a revival of the early Irish harp has been growing, with replicas of the medieval instruments being played, using strings of brass, silver, and even gold. This revival grew through the work of a number of musicians including
Arnold Dolmetsch in 1930s England,
Alan Stivell in 1960s Brittany, and Ann Heymann in the US from the 1970s to the present. In 2019, Irish harping was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO, recognizing its cultural importance. Notable players of the modern harp include
Derek Bell (of
the Chieftains),
Laoise Kelly (of the Bumblebees),
Gráinne Hambly,
Máire Ní Chathasaigh,
Mary O'Hara,
Antoinette McKenna,
Áine Minogue, and
Patrick Ball. However, the harp continues to occupy a niche in Irish traditional music, mainly for solo instrumental performance, or as the only accompaniment for an individual singer. Its melodic foreground role and background accompaniment role as a plucked or strummed string instrument has been subsumed by
guitar,
mandolin, and
Irish bouzouki, etc., in ensemble performance.
Accordion and concertina in Dublin, 2010 The accordion plays a major part in modern Irish music. The accordion spread to Ireland late in the 19th century. In its ten-key form (
melodeon), it is claimed that it was popular across the island. It was recorded in the US by
John Kimmel, The Flanagan Brothers, Eddie Herborn and
Peter Conlon. While uncommon, the melodeon is still played in some parts of Ireland, in particular in
Connemara by
Johnny Connolly. Modern Irish accordion players generally prefer the 2 row button accordion. Unlike similar accordions used in other European and American music traditions, the rows are tuned a semi-tone apart. This allows the instrument to be played chromatically in melody. Currently accordions tuned to the keys of B/C and C#/D are by far the most popular systems. The B/C accordion lends itself to a flowing style; it was popularised by
Paddy O'Brien of
County Tipperary in the late 1940s and 1950s,
Joe Burke and
Sonny Brogan in the 1950s and 60s. Dublin native
James Keane brought the instrument to New York where he maintained an influential recording and performing career from the 1970s to the present. Other famous B/C players include
Paddy O'Brien of County Offaly,
Bobby Gardiner,
Finbarr Dwyer, John Nolan,
James Keane, and Billy McComiskey. The C#/D accordion lends itself to a punchier style and is particularly popular in the slides and polkas of Kerry Music. Notable players include
Tony MacMahon,
Máirtín O'Connor,
Sharon Shannon,
Charlie Piggott,
Jackie Daly,
Joe Cooley and
Johnny O'Leary. The piano accordion became highly popular during the 1950s and has flourished to the present day in céilí bands and for old time Irish dance music. Their greater range, ease of changing key, more fluent action, along with their strong musette tuning blended seamlessly with the other instruments and were highly valued during this period. They are a mainstay of the top Irish and Scottish ceilidh bands.
Dermot O'Brien, Malachy Doris, Sean Quinn and
Mick Foster are well known Irish solo masters of this instrument and were well recorded. The latest revival of traditional music from the late 1970s also revived the interest in this versatile instrument. Like the button key accordion, a new playing style has emerged with a dry tuning, lighter style of playing and a more rhythmically varied bass. Notable players of this modern style include
Karen Tweed (England) and Alan Kelly (Roscommon). Concertinas are manufactured in several types, the most common in Irish traditional music being the Anglo system with a few musicians now playing the English system. Each differs from the other in construction and playing technique. The most distinctive characteristic of the Anglo system is that each button sounds a different note, depending on whether the bellows are compressed or expanded. Anglo concertinas typically have either two or three rows of buttons that sound notes, plus an "air button" located near the right thumb that allows the player to fill or empty the bellows without sounding a note. Two-row Anglo concertinas usually have 20 buttons that sound notes. Each row of 10 buttons comprises notes within a common key. The two primary rows thus contain the notes of two musical keys, such as C and G. Each row is divided in two with five buttons playing lower-pitched notes of the given key on the left-hand end of the instrument and five buttons playing the higher pitched notes on the right-hand end. The row of buttons in the higher key is closer to the wrist of each hand. 20 key concertinas have a limited use for Irish traditional music due to the limited range of accidentals available. Three-row concertinas add a third row of accidentals (i.e., sharps and flats not included in the keys represented by the two main rows) and redundant notes (i.e., notes that duplicate those in the main keys but are located in the third, outermost row) that enable the instrument to be played in virtually any key. A series of sequential notes can be played in the home-key rows by depressing a button, compressing the bellows, depressing the same button and extending the bellows, moving to the next button and repeating the process, and so on. A consequence of this arrangement is that the player often encounters occasions requiring a change in bellows direction, which produces a clear separation between the sounds of the two adjacent notes. This tends to give the music a more punctuated, bouncy sound that can be especially well suited to hornpipes or jigs. English concertinas, by contrast, sound the same note for any given button, irrespective of the direction of bellows travel. Thus, any note can be played while the bellows is either expanded or compressed. As a consequence, sequential notes can be played without altering the bellows direction. This allows sequences of notes to be played in a smooth, continuous stream without the interruption of changing bellows direction. Despite the inherent bounciness of the Anglo and the inherent smoothness of the English concertina systems, skilled players of Irish traditional music can achieve either effect on each type of instrument by adapting the playing style. On the Anglo, for example, the notes on various rows partially overlap and the third row contains additional redundant notes, so that the same note can be sounded with more than one button. Often, whereas one button will sound a given note on bellows compression, an alternative button in a different row will sound the same note on bellows expansion. Thus, by playing across the rows, the player can avoid changes in bellows direction from note to note where the musical objective is a smoother sound. Likewise, the English system accommodates playing styles that counteract its inherent smoothness and continuity between notes. Specifically, when the music calls for it, the player can choose to reverse bellows direction, causing sequential notes to be more distinctly articulated. Popular concertina players include
Mohsen Amini,
Niall Vallely,
Kitty Hayes,
Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin,
Noel Hill and Padraig Rynne.
Liam Clancy (of the Clancy Brothers and
Makem and Clancy) also played the concertina until his death in 2009.
Banjo The four-string tenor banjo is played as a melody instrument by Irish traditional players, and is commonly tuned GDAE, an octave below the fiddle. It was brought to Ireland by returned emigrants from the United States, where it had been developed by African
slaves. It is seldom strummed in Irish music (although older recordings will sometimes feature the banjo used as a backing instrument), instead being played as a melody instrument using either a
plectrum or a "thimble".
Barney McKenna of
the Dubliners is often credited with paving the way for the banjo's current popularity, and actively played until his death in 2012, aged 72. Notable players include
Kieran Hanrahan,
Charlie Piggott,
John Carty, Angelina Carberry,
Gerry O'Connor,
Enda Scahill, Kevin Griffin and All Ireland Fleadh champion, Brian Scannell. With a few exceptions, for example
Tom Hanway, the five-string banjo has had little role in Irish traditional music as a melody instrument. It has been used for accompaniment by the singers
Margaret Barry,
Pecker Dunne,
Luke Kelly, Al O'Donnell,
Bobby Clancy and
Tommy Makem.
Mandolin The mandolin has become a common instrument amongst Irish traditional musicians. Fiddle tunes are readily accessible to the mandolin player because of the equivalent range of the two instruments and the practically identical (allowing for the lack of frets on the fiddle) left hand fingerings. Although almost any variety of acoustic mandolin might be adequate for Irish traditional music, virtually all Irish players prefer flat-backed instruments with oval sound holes to the Italian-style bowl-back mandolins or the carved-top mandolins with f-holes favoured by
bluegrass mandolinists. The former are often too soft-toned to hold their own in a session (as well as having a tendency to not stay in place on the player's lap), whilst the latter tend to sound harsh and overbearing to the traditional ear. Greatly preferred for formal performance and recording are flat-topped "Irish-style" mandolins (reminiscent of the WWI-era Martin Army-Navy mandolin) and carved (arch) top mandolins with oval soundholes, such as the Gibson A-style of the 1920s. Resonator mandolins such as the RM-1 from National Resophonic are beginning to show up in Irish sessions in the US because they are loud enough to easily be heard. Noteworthy Irish mandolinists include
Andy Irvine (who, like
Johnny Moynihan, almost always tunes the E down to D),
Mick Moloney,
Paul Kelly, Declan Corey and Claudine Langille.
John Sheahan and
Barney McKenna, fiddle player and tenor banjo player respectively, with
the Dubliners are also accomplished mandolin players.
Guitar The guitar is not traditional in Irish music but has become widely accepted in modern
sessions. These are usually strummed with a plectrum (pick) to provide backing for the melody players or, sometimes, a singer. Irish backing tends to use chord voicings up and down the neck, rather than basic first or second position "cowboy chords"; unlike those used in jazz, these chord voicings seldom involve barre fingerings and often employ one or more open strings in combination with strings stopped at the fifth or higher frets. Modal (root and fifth without the third, neither major nor minor) chords are used extensively alongside the usual major and minor chords, as are suspended and sometimes more exotic augmented chords; however, the major and minor seventh chords are less employed than in many other styles of music. Ideally, the guitarist follows the leading melody player or singer precisely rather than trying to control the rhythm and tempo. Most guitar parts take inspiration and direction from the melody, rather than driving the melody as in other acoustic genres. Many of the earliest notable guitarists working in traditional music, such as
Dáithí Sproule and
The Bothy Band's
Mícheál Ó Domhnaill, tuned their instruments in "DADGAD" tuning. Many other players including
Steve Cooney,
Arty McGlynn and John Doyle use the "standard" (EADGBE) and "drop D" (DADGBE) tunings. A host of other alternative tunings are also used by some players. The distinctive feature of these tunings is that one or more open strings played along with fingered chord shapings provide a
drone note part of the chord. Guitarists and bouzouki players may play single note melody instead of harmonizing accompaniment, but in live acoustic sessions with more than two or three players it is difficult to produce sufficient volume to be heard over drumming and the piercing sound of fiddles and penny whistles.
Bouzouki Although not traditional, the Irish bouzouki
Paddy Clancy became the first world-famous Irish folk
harmonicist in the early 1960s as part of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. ==Revivals of traditional Irish music==