A history of traditional music in Dublin since 1901

Contributed by Lisa Marie Griffith

For those of you in and around the capital 27-31st January an event not to miss is the Temple Bar Tradfest. This must be the biggest event that Temple Bar hosts and it is set to get even better this year. The festival looks set to promote not just the traditional aspect of Temple Bar and trad music, there is a Food and Pub trail and free music in pubs throughout the area, they are set to cater for eaveryones tastes- this includes those interested in history! One part of the multi-media and interactive aspect of the festival is the Traditional music in Dublin photogprah exhibition in Temple Bar Gallery &  studios. The exhibition is by Castle Ceili Band flute player, Mick O’Connor who is currently writing a history of the Dublin Piper’s Club. ‘The material, much of which has never been on public display before is drawn from Mick’s lifelong and extensive collection of photographs and writings.’ A highlight of the exhibit is the picture inset of the 1916 proclamation signatory Eamon Ceannt who was secretary of the Dublin Piper’s Club. Anyone interested in the history of the club can click here for a longer piece on the Comhaltas blog. The exhibition will appeal to social historians or anyone interested in Traditional Irish music and culture.

Something for the weekend: The Dublin Viking Festival

By Lisa-Marie Griffith

This recommendation really comes from Dublin Community Blog, one of the most useful blogs for every Dublin inhabitant and visitor. This weekend, 16 October- 18 October Temple bar and Wood Quay will be returned to the Vikings for the Dublin Viking Festival. There will be ‘living history displays’, battle re-enactments, food stalls, street art, walking tours of Viking Dublin ‘traditional acts performing Nordic music’ and much more. This looks like a great day for kids and a good way to introduce them to the city’s history. The author of the Dublin Community Blog post warns, however, that this might be appreciated more by children than adults: ‘the festival is generally more aiming at family entertainment than drinking mead from the skulls of slain enemies’. Still, I don’t know enough about Viking history and I am curious to see what the battle re-enactments are like so I am certainly going to pop along and check this out (I might just have to being my nieces as a cover). 

A country-wide peek at Culture Night…

By Lisa-Marie Griffith

Tonight is Culture Night 2009 and this year even more cities and towns than ever will take part in the event. Belfast, Cork, Dublin, Galway, Letterkenny, Limerick, Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo, Tralee, Waterford and Wexford so I have taken a quick look at whats going on around the country to make some recommendations on what to see.  Belfast is participating in Culture night for the first year and most of the events will take place in the Cathedral quarter which ‘will be totally transformed for the evening as public areas and streets are turned into performance spaces.

Pull up a pew at the picnic for the history session: Diarmaid Ferriter at the Electric Picnic

By Lisa-Marie Griffith

I have to admit I was a little surprised to see Diarmaid Ferriter listed as one of the speakers at the Literary Tent at the Electric Picnic  festival this weekend.  Ferriter, there to promote his new book, Occasions of Sin: Sex and Society in Modern Irelandspoke alongside a weekend line-up that included Roddy Doyle, John Banville and Florence (of Florence and the Machine). My curiosity got the better of me and so I took some time out from the music to go along.

I posted a blog about the historian Simon Schama speaking with world renowned literary giants at the Dublin Writers Festival so why was I surprised? Well it’s a music festival- a place where people convene to see bands and engage in more popular pursuits like music. There is something about the Irish literary figures, stereotypically drunk, broke (or both) and with destructive personalities, that seems to fit with the idea of a rock stars and their lifestyle so I suppose I have always seen the addition of such a popular subject area as literature to a Music and Arts festival like Electric Picnic as natural. But does a historian really belong at a boutique arts and music festival like ‘The Picnic’?

Pue’s has in a number of posts raised the issue in one guise or another: ‘how popular is it acceptable for a historian and history to be while remaining academically true?’

Pue’s Recommendations for July

Pue’s Recommendations is a (mostly biased) monthly list of things worth reading, watching, listening to and attending, put together by the editors of Pue’s Occurrences. If there’s anything you think we’ve missed out on, or anything you think isn’t worth the mention, feel free to leave us a comment.

Juliana Adelman

An oldy but goody for holiday reading: The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain, a travelogue of his visit to Europe. I’m a bit out of touch with goings on about town, but the Galway Film Fleadh has a few Irish documentaries that might offer interesting recent social history: Adhlacoiri on death and burial traditions in Connemara and His and Hers on love. And while we’re on film there’s a documentary on Ireland’s oldest circus (Fossett’s) at the IFI in Dublin on 26th July.

Lisa-Marie Griffith

The last of the Hodges Figgis sale- recession beating reading, we haven’t quite been driven to the libraries yet! And getting out and seeing some of the sun- Temple Bar’s Summer activities are fantastic this year including the Circus Festival and Temple Bar’s No Grants Gallery exhibition of Evan O’Sullivan and Leo Boyd. Not all historic but it’s summer and I refuse to just read history when there is so much going on in the city. The Trim Swift Festival, 2-5 July, also looks excellent.

Kevin O’Sullivan

I’m reading a lot about the Antarctic at the moment, so I’ll point you to Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s memoir of the doomed Scott expedition, The Worst Journey in the World, which, apart from being one of the greatest books on exploration ever written, is a wonderful microcosm of turn-of-the-century British society (e.g. building a partition wall in the middle of their tiny hut) played out at the South Pole. Closer to home, check out Harry Clarke’s illustrations for Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales at the National Gallery, and DCU President Ferdinand Von Prondzynski’s always interesting University Diary blog.