Early Modern Music (From 1500 to 1800)

      The most remarkable characteristic of this period is the origin of Irish traditional music and the consideration of harp music as obsolete. This could be because both Henry VIII and Elizabeth I prohibited music: the píobare (piper), bard (figure which I will explain in detail later), and aois ealaíon (artistic class) were frequently outlawed. Only some Tudors allowed Irish music in the court or to the Gaelic kerne (professional soldiers) of the Fiach MacAodha Ó Broin being led into battle by pipers. Native musicians also registered their impressions of the Tudor conquest. From now onwards, the differentiations of the figures of the file (poet), reacaire (reciter), and cruitire (harper) are no longer valid.

     Music has seemed to be a good way of transmitting news and also a good report of political and war issues, (i.e., “Seán Ó Duibhir A'Ghleanna”¹ (lauding the exploits of John O'Dwyer during the Cromwellian Wars);“Clare's Dragoons”² (extolling Wild Geese valor in the French army at Fontenoy in 1745)). The theme of love keeps being recurrent (i.e., “Dónal Óg”³ by anonymous poet and a vernacular song (in gaelic amhráin)). Other kinds of love songs are: caoineadh (laments), amhrán bheannaithe (sacred songs), keening songs, and the formal and semilearned marbhna (bardic elegies), the aisling (“vision poem/ song”, in which the poet meets an echanted lady, symbolically Ireland) increased notably in number. “Úr Chill an Chreagáin”⁴ by the Ulster poet Art Mac Cumhaigh (1715-1774) is among the best known.

     Here there are the videos for the songs before mentioned. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did. (In some of them, the lyrics are also included but only on youtube's webpage).

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

     By 1730 folk music became community oriented by dealing with religious, legal, and economic issues. Jacobite songs, which reflected a common Gaelic culture that linked Ireland with Scotland, emerged in the 1700s with songs like “Mo Ghile Mear”⁵ and “Rosc Catha na Mumhan”⁶ which are still very popular. And the last one helps perfectly to introduce the next coming topic: Dancing.

DANCING

     Throughout the 18^th century, traffic in and out of Ireland had a direct impact on music (i.e., the adoption of the modern violin (fidil in Irish)), song and dance, and helped to disperse Irish music. Some popular forms by the 1600s were: “hay”, “fading”, “trenchmore”, and “rince fada” (long dance).In 1780, there is a very interesting quotation by Arthur Young (English geographer) who noted that “dancing is general among the poor people, almost universal in every cabin. Dancing masters of their own rank travel through the country from cabin to cabin, with a piper or blind fiddler; and the pay is sixpence a quarter. It is an absolute system of education.” He cited jigs, minuets, and cotillions as the most common dances. Reels and hornpipes were not that common until the 1790s. By then, the printed collections of some Scottish composers were gaining new audiences in Ireland and that is why it is possible to find reels like “Miss MacLeod” in Irish repertories.

BARDS

     First of all, and as I have mentioned before in my previous post “History of Irish Music” I want to clarify again the fact that Bards were basically Poets and not Musicians. Once this is clear, we can look at the dramatic change of social status that bards suffered by this time. From being an important figure in the history of music, to almost become extinct. Most of the composers turned to be itinerant harpers becoming also musicians because of necessity. Only those who were patronized by important landlords or wealthy Gaelic families could do it for a living. The most prominent was Turlough Carolan (1670- 1738) whose work was published during his own lifetime because of his wade repertoire. It is needed to say that efforts were made to preserve the oral art of the harper that was facing extinction, for example at the Belfast Harpers' Festival in 1792 or collections of Irish Music.

THE END OF THE EARLY MODEN ERA

     The work of previous songwriters of the 1790s (Raiftearaí, Ó Súilleabháin) is now marginalized by macaronic songs (bilingual lyrics) and English language ballads. But all of them shared the topics of love, work, recreation, death and the supernatural. There were also political songs but not as important as they were the centuries before. As for the instruments, pipe makers perfected the unique multireed uilleann pipes. By 1742 Irish traditional music had spread worldwide.

     An interesting detail is that in the rural clacháns⁷ of the west of Ireland, music making followed the cyclical calendar of the agricultural year. Dance music and set dancing experienced dynamic growth in the late 1700s, until they were erased by famine and diaspora.

⁷ A group of houses clustered together with no apparent order or pattern.

     Source: Encyclopedia of Irish History and Culture, vol. 1./ James S. Donnelly, Jr. (editor in chief) Macmillan Reference USA. Thomson Gale.