The flute and Irish history

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Steampacket
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by Steampacket »

You don't think there not being any coalfields might have something to do with it? And maybe not much wood (re the small chairs, above)pb+j
There is indeed coal in Ireland.

"THE Connacht Coalfield - better known as the Arigna coalfields - is stated by Sir Richard Griffith in his 1814 survey to be almost 158 square miles in extent. The greater part of the coal deposits are found in three mountains - Kilronan, Altagowan and Slieve-an-Iaran ['The mountain of iron']. At present [1945] the Arigna mine employs more than 600 miners who work along the slopes of a mountain that overlooks Lough Allen. The daily output is about 400 tons and about £2,400 is earned each week in the neighbourhood. The district around Drumshambo in south Leitrim recalls to one's mind the colliery districts of Lancashire for the grimy-faced miners carry their picks as they walk to the little villages and towns".

"A population starving and eager to be employed at any price, a district capable of setting them in work if its resources were directed by honesty and common sense." Today Arigna coal has found a market. The total deposit is reckoned to be about 25 million tons. Its quality is not inferior to the best cross-Channel varieties. In 1944 the output was about 120,000 tons. In 1907 it was just 15,000 tons. Coal and fire-clay occur in County Tyrone at Coalisland and Dungannon. The Leinster Coalfield extends over 94 square miles in Kilkenny, Carlow and Laois. The Munster Coalfield measures six hundred and forty square miles from Kanturk in County Cork to the middle of Clare".

"The most successful mines were in Arigna in south Leitrim. Started by Sir Charles Coote in the 17th century to feed local iron furnaces, Arigna mines were supplying the local power station until its closure in 1990".

William Forde, a flute and piano player, from Cork undertook a major collecting trip to Connacht during the Famine year of 1846. Canon Goodman, piper and singer, from Dingle collected 2,300 tunes in the 1860's. As regards written collections I've never had much use for O'Neill's collection of tunes myself, preferring Breathnach's Ceol rince books, Bulmer & Sharpley's tune books, Goodman's manuscripts, Leo Rowsome's collection
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by Mr.Gumby »

There is indeed coal in Ireland.
You will have to wonder how profitable it was to mine, compared to the European and British coalfields. Coal was being imported into Ireland at the same time the local mines were operational. For example, ships from Newcastle used to come into Liscannor, unload coal and take back a cargo of flagstones from the Liscannor/Doolin quarry operations. There is a hilarious story of John Killourhy ending up on one of these ships, with another of the North Clare musicians, I forget who the second man was. They didn't like it much and never went back to sea after their return journey.

Anyhow, there were other mining operations around the place: lead, copper, silver etc. The copper mines of Beara were a thriving industry, over a thousand people working the mining operation, IIRC, for example. As was the Waterford 'copper coast', Avoca etc. Most of those operations exhausted the resources or became unviable over time.
Fair sized quarrying operations were also active, the Doolin/Liscannor flagstone quarries already mentioned, the Valentia island slate quarries come to mind. There was a degree of industry, albeit not heavy Industrial revolution type of stuff. Not enough to call the island industrialised, but it was not totally without either.
William Forde, a flute and piano player, from Cork undertook a major collecting trip to Connacht during the Famine year of 1846.

Forde Collection

It bears reminding O'Neill was not the be all end all of collecting/publishing. He was one of many, well-placed in Chicago, important, obviously. But all, or most, of the ones mentioned above, as well as Leavey, Darley/McCall, Roche eyc were all at it, driven by similar motivations and concerns.

Back to flutes now?
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by GreenWood »

I don't remember if anyone posted Hammy Hamilton's writing on the few related instruments found, so will include that

http://hammy-flutemaker.blogspot.com/20 ... art-1.html

http://hammy-flutemaker.blogspot.com/20 ... art-2.html


From the Isle of Man there are a couple of early flutes/fifes, maker unknown or possibly imported

https://www.imuseum.im/search/all/search?term=Flute


This is an account from mudcat.org on how a song was remembered for three hundred years. Isle of Man is a small island, mostly rural. The song was shared from one storyteller to the next during that time.

"John Matt lived alone and looked after himself till well into his eighties. He was a great storyteller and knew quite a few songs and dances. He knew all the places mentioned in "Ny Kirreee fo niaghtey" and would tell how the song was "made on" Nicholas Colcheragh, or 'Raby' as he was called, " before the Murrays [the Dukes of Atholl] came to Mann", by a young man living in Raby who was a wonderful singer and fiddler, and how after the great storm and the loss of his flocks Raby himself died, so the tale went. John himself had worked for most of his life all around Raby, and had lived for a time at the Laggan Agneash, a croft at the foot of Snaefell"
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by david_h »

Steampacket wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 5:44 am There is indeed coal in Ireland.
I did check before I posted. In UK terms there is no significant coal. In 1945 when the Arigna mine employed over 600 people the coal industry in the UK employed over 600,000 people. In 1920 it was over a million.

Maybe Ireland wasn't industrialised for the same reason that large areas of England were not industrialised - it was better suited for something else. Most of it still is.
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by PB+J »

I think this is kind of blaming the land for what's seems really clearly political policy. I mean the land does not require or produce absentee landlordism. The land does not cause evictions or starvation: the land was capable of producing food for exports throughout the famine. The belfast area was quite heavily industrialized and it has the exact same lack of coal as the rest of the island. Before I gave the example of the Lowell mills in the US, employing tens of thousands of people in entirely water driven mills starting in the 1820s

https://www.asce.org/about-civil-engine ... wer-system

When the financial backers of the Lowell project looked for a model to imitate, they looked to England and its water powered mills, not to Ireland because Ireland had plenty of water but few mills--for reasons of policy.

The argument here as you no doubt noticed is similar to the argument I was making about the flute and traditional music: i don't think it's really possible to talk about traditional music separately from the political and economic conditions under which it's made.
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by david_h »

PB+J wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 5:15 pmi don't think it's really possible to talk about traditional music separately from the political and economic conditions under which it's made.
I would prefer to hear the economic conditions evidenced first by geographic (natural resources, transport options , market proximity etc) and technological (what industry was then capable of) considerations. Relying first, and heavily, on a particular political narrative is unhelpful in a context where some details of that cannot be questioned.
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by david_h »

"Viability". Good word. Should have quoted you on that Mr G. :wink:
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by GreenWood »

An itinerant flute player Ireland photograph, probably before or around 1900

https://www.alamy.com/an-itinerant-iris ... 18201.html

From the The Keasbury-Gordon Photograph Archive, whose site does not seem to offer much but at Alamy in search for Ireland with it as source gives many early photos of Ireland

https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/Irela ... y=relevant


[A known tale:

A businessman was standing at the end of the pier in a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The businessman complimented the fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The fisherman replied that it only took a little while. The businessman then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish. The fisherman said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.

The businessman then asked: “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

The fisherman said: “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my friends. I have a full and busy life”.

The businessman scoffed. “I am a Wharton MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats. Eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.”

The fisherman asked: “But how long will this all take?”

To which the businessman replied: “Fifteen or twenty years”.

“But what then?”

The businessman laughed and said: “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions”.

“Millions? Then what?”

The businessman said: “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your friends”.]
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by Mr.Gumby »

I was going to stay out of this particular branch of the discussion. This morning though, I had to do a fuel run, get bags of turf at the fuel merchant's. The business is on the, aptly named, Mill Road and I couldn't help thinking of this thread. A quick snap on my phone of what's across the way:

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I remember at least part of the Mill buildings still standing there, before they were demolished by the mid eighties. One of the water wheels remains. Remains of water powered mills, corn flour, linen, wool etc are, by my estimation, a pretty common sight, all over the country.
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by GreenWood »

When you mentioned the windmill farm in Ireland before (another thread), I was going to reply but instead just became caught up in all things windmill (the old kind, not the modern ones). In southern Iberia there is not much by way of rivers, those that flow year round are few. So most power was by windmills, and we have many ruins of those around. I knew some water mills in Spain, but they would only be seasonal, some were moorish I think, another one was more recent for preparing paper (the family would spend their day making small paper bags). At least your mill has an extra wheel there for it all to be turned by hand if the river is low ;-) . I was just spinning a wheel like that from a hand powered water pump in fact, had thought of taking a photo. It wasn't connected to the pump, so just turned slowly for ages once spun...so I had to spin it again... and again... :-) simple things and all that. In fact here in Portugal most of the water wheels are for raising water, as opposed to being powered by. There are wells everywhere, and usually a horse would be powering a wheel wrapped by a chain loaded with buckets, raising water for irrigation.


Here is a Spanish windmill video

https://youtu.be/vPlj3Ie8kXI

The mill in Spain that ground the grain that fed the carpenter that built the boat that carried the sails that caught the wind that blew the clouds that brought the rain that filled the river that powered the mill that wove the linen that made the bag that carried within the chisel that carved the flute that was made in Ireland.
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by Mr.Gumby »

At least your mill has an extra wheel there for it all to be turned by hand if the river is low
I think that wheel opens or closes the sluice gates that control the water going into the mill race.

But we're way off topic at this stage.
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by GreenWood »

For the sluice, but it just had the look of wanting to turn the wheel also.

I decided to look around for continental flute history, just to try to understand influences possible. The first thing that is obvious is that both flute and whistle have been played in europe at least since they were likely to be recorded. I sometimes read "imported from far east" etc. and that just seems silly. These links are in french but are as much for the pictures. Here are a couple of 10th/11th century pictures

https://www.musicologie.org/sites/f/flu ... siere.html

I had started the search with Bretagne, because that might have been closest to Ireland, first read was not paywalled at

https://the-past.com/feature/bretons-an ... onnection/

Which noted churches in Wales and Bretagne of same name by map, for example


https://latraversiere.fr/en/webzine/ent ... l-veillon/

talks of flutes and fifes there, with earliest reference around 15th century if I remember. The related picture is in that link, from this late medieval church

http://www.infobretagne.com/faouet-chapelle-fiacre.htm

Finally

https://crmtl.fr/ressources/jean-marc-d ... -et-velay/

looks at fifes and whistles in Limousin and Auvergne, going back to at least 15th century.

I think the picture across europe would be roughly similar, with always some flutes and whistles of some kind present, but only becoming popular and prominent in certain settings, and then at later dates (say 15th century onwards) .
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by Terry McGee »

Hi PB&J

Just happened to pick up on this from the Session website. Around the 20 minute mark Tansey starts to talk about Coleman - how the records "came home to Ireland and were the one single factor that sparked the new flame to keep Irish music alive". Possibly nothing new to you, but interesting in the light of the discussion.

From the Kitchen to the World Stage: The Farmer Musicians of County Sligo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6UAJ9ceCe4

(Note that a few minutes later they show a recording lathe, but this is an electric instrument probably from the LP days, far distant from the "His Master's Voice" acoustic lathes of Coleman's day.)
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by Mr.Gumby »

It is, perhaps, worth pondering Coleman never recorded with a flueplayer (I conveniently ignore the piccolos he did record with) while Killoran loved the flute. Killoran had a radio show in New York, often played duets with McGovern on the flute, lovely stuff. On his visits to Ireland he sought out flute players as well, recording them and playing with them I even have a recording of Killoran playing with a eleven or twelve year old Matt Molloy.
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by PB+J »

Terry McGee wrote: Mon Dec 12, 2022 5:30 am Hi PB&J

Just happened to pick up on this from the Session website. Around the 20 minute mark Tansey starts to talk about Coleman - how the records "came home to Ireland and were the one single factor that sparked the new flame to keep Irish music alive". Possibly nothing new to you, but interesting in the light of the discussion.

From the Kitchen to the World Stage: The Farmer Musicians of County Sligo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6UAJ9ceCe4

(Note that a few minutes later they show a recording lathe, but this is an electric instrument probably from the LP days, far distant from the "His Master's Voice" acoustic lathes of Coleman's day.)
There's so much about the way Coleman is explained that I don't understand. You're told he was typical of the style of the region, and that his brother was a better player, but nobody in Ireland ever bothered to record his brother, and for some reason the records--which were typical of the region--sparked a revival of interest and not the brother, who was still playing when the records started to arrive I believe. Like why did they need to get it in records from NYC for there to be a revival?

My own argument is that what people liked about the Coleman records--and the records from the US in general--was the higher degree of "performativity." There were dozens of dance halls in NYC offering irish every night of the week, and if you were playing in vaudeville houses you had to learn to "Sell it" That gave the records a novelty and force that you didn't hear in customary local music. Well that or it's the terrible piano playing!
Last edited by PB+J on Tue Dec 13, 2022 9:30 am, edited 2 times in total.
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