The Irish Song Tradition by Seán Ó Boyle; Éigse Cheol Tire/Irish Folk Music Studies by HughShields; Seóirse Bodley; Breandán BreathnachReview by: James PorterIrish University Review, Vol. 7, No. 2, The National Library of Ireland Centenary Issue 1877-1977 (Autumn, 1977), pp. 275-277Published by: Edinburgh University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25477181 .

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Book Reviews Sean O Boyle, The Irish Song Tradition. Dublin: Gilbert Dalton, 1976. 96 pages. ?1.65. (Distributed in North America by Macmillan,

Toronto.)

Hugh Shields, Se?irse Bodley and Breand?n Breathnach (editors), Eigse Cheol Tire/Irish Folk Music Studies, Volume I: 1972-1973 and Volume II: 1974-1975. Dundrum, Dublin, 1973 and 1976.

72 and 88 pages. ?1.00 each.

Authoritative, scholarly assessments of the nature and evolution of

traditional music in Ireland are not exactly thick on the ground. While devoted collectors since the 18th century have ridden their

hobby horses to death in trying to capture a protean phenomenon, there has not emerged a Kod?ly, Sharp, or Phillips Barry who

could characterize the overall shape and configuration of the tra

dition through assiduous fieldwork, research, and publication.

Contemporary scholars have either been cautious in their general izations, or have tended to oversimplify the complexities inherent

in Irish traditional music. To complement the cursory treatment

afforded the rich singing tradition by Breandan Breathnach's

Folkmusic and Dances of Ireland (1971), we now have another

slim volume by an equally devoted student of the music at first

hand, Sean O Boyle. The Irish Song Tradition is clearly a work which has grown out

of a deep affection for and acquaintance with this living, oral

patrimony. Its 93 pages are divided into two parts: The Origins and Nature of Irish Song, and Twenty Five Irish Songs. The former

section treats historical, formal, and tonal features, the latter

offers texts, tunes, and annotations of songs in both Irish (six, two with translations) and English (nineteen). As might be ex

pected from the foregoing remarks, it is not the scholar who

dominates this little book, but the perceptive participant who has

shared the intimate secrets of the singer and his art. While anyone who has undertaken field observation will sympathise with this

approach, it is not a book for the learned; there are, for example,

only tfcree footnotes in the entire book, with a few additional

references to important collections (why are some of these re

ferences in the notes to songs, while others are in the Notes and

Abbreviations at the back?) Those readers unacquainted with musical terminology will find

the chapter on the modes heavy going even though it is only three

pages long. Curiously, the author is one of those who, without

offering any theoretical justification, would classify the mode of a

tune by its final note. While this may be an attempt to classify

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IRISH UNIVERSITY REVIEW

according to what satisfies the singer, O Boyle does not say so.

Modal terminology will confuse the layman, who may well wonder

(unless familiar with the Gilchrist-Sharp system of mode classi

fication) what "Lah. Pentatonic" (p. 69) means, or "Mode. Re

mode from D" (p. 73). More assured is the section on metre and the interlocking re

lationship between music and poetics, though the reader unac

quainted with Gaelic and the Irish song repertoire in general will

find it difficult, undoubtedly, to "slow down the tempo of the

Rose Tree and try these words to the air: "Ba ghl? ba ghleal ba

ghleoite i....", and so on for eight more lines (p. 20). O Boyle's

ability, however, to unravel convoluted twine of folk etymology or social background in a tune invites comparison with that of

Francis O'Neill, and comes through in clarifying "Esternsnowe"

(Diseart Nuadhan was the townland's original name), or "The

Purple Boy" with its Masonic content. His observation that the

versification (Ochtfhoclach) of "Moorlough Mary" shows the in

fluence of Gaelic metre on the rural songmakers of the nine

teenth century, while hardly original, is worth repeating when

specific instances can be demonstrated.

In general, the notes to the songs are a mixture of scholarly reference, fieldwork anecdote, informed opinion, and unhelpful

commentary ("This song of rejected love ending in the spirit of

high adventure expresses beautifully the feelings of quite a number

of roving Irish men who sought relief from their troubles in the

New World," p. 85, is an example of the last kind of remark). When all is said and done, though, to have glimpses of the riches

of the^ song tradition through the eyes and ears of a man like

Sean O Boyle makes this a book every scholar of Irish music

will want to consult. Its faults are those only the most ungenerous of critics Would elevate above its virtues of unaffectedness and

contact with the life-blood of tradition. As a publication, the

book has print which is unusually clear (there are one or two

misprints), and the music is professionally done.

While a definitive, full-length study of Irish traditional music

has yet to appear, the two volumes of the new journal Irish Folk

Music Studies will excite the interested scholar and provide a

satisfying accompaniment to the spasmodic appearance of Ceol, which since the 1960's has helped to fill the gap left by the

demise of the Journal of the Irish Folk-Song Society (1904-32). Edited by Hugh Shields, Se?irse Bodley, and Breand?n Breathnach, the two issues which have appeared so far maintain a very respec table scholarly level, with full-length articles, shorter notes, and

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BOOK REVIEWS

reviews of both books and records in Gaelic and English. In

Volume I, Alan Bruford's "Sea-divided Gaels'7 wrestles with the

complex problem of song and tune correspondences and their

possible diffusion through districts like Argyll and the glens of

Antrim; Tom Munnelly gives an account of the rare "Lord O'Bore

and Mary Flynn" (Prince Robert, Child 87), recovered by him

from a Dublin worker in 1970; Se?irse Bodley examines technique and structure in sean-n?s singing; Caitl?n Ui Eigeartaigh assesses

Patrick Weston Joyce as an editor of folk music; Alf Mac Lochlainn

gives a report on the well-known "Caoine na dtri Mhuire". These are samples of the stimulating subjects offered in Irish Folk Music

Studies. In general, the volumes are scrupulously edited and reflect a

reinvigorated phase in Irish folk music scholarship. Controversy, often the sign of lively achievement in scholarship, is not avoided; the origin of the jig "Tus an Phoirt in Eireann" is hotly debated

in the pages of Volume II. In size and format, Volume II is some

what smaller than Volume I (no doubt for economy's sake), and

sometimes the print in the reviews is miniscule. For compara tive purposes, it might have been preferable to carry musical

illustration in the treble rather than the bass clef (pp. 30, 34 in

Vol. 1). But a knowledgeable and exciting flow of reviews from

A.L. Lloyd, John Blacking, Sean O Baoill, Georges-Denis Zimmer man and others reinforces the impression that a new spirit and

era are in evidence in Irish folk music studies, a movement closely bound up with the renaissance of the Folk Music Society of Ireland

in 1971 and its official link in 1973 to the International Folk

Music Council. While this reviewer, at least, hopes that the journal will not suffer further exigencies in terms of economy, its con

tinuation must be regarded as a matter of primary importance.

JAMES PORTER

Andrew Carpenter (editor), Place, Personality and the Irish Writer.

Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1977. 200 pages. ?7.50. Irish

Literary Studies, I.

This book consists of a number of studies prepared for the IASAIL conference at Galway in 1976. Very often the theme chosen for literary conferences is so general that the resultant

papers have only the fortuitous unity of being bound within the same covers, uneasy bedfellows who sprawl all over the place.

This time the theme was well chosen; most of the studies have a

distinct relevance to each other and the whole book has a sense

of coherence.

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