Tom Munnelly Irish folk collector

There is some basic ignorance even among some practicioners of traditional Irish music.

Some people naively assume that some significant origin of Irish trad is from the English tradition.
This assumption is a condition of some Irish people who have been themselves conditioned to assume all things flow East West.

Is much of Irish music really English?

Only in the sense that the origin of what has recently been termed as English trad has its main origins from mainly 18 & 19th century Irish immigrants into Britain.

The sea shanty for example is from Irish sailors in the Royal Navy.
The hornpipe also is from the same generally Irish sailors in the Royal Navy of Nelson's time. Basically a Irish jig adapted for practical fitness in confined quarters.
Nelson who thanked God for the Irish tars after Trafalgar, where at least 4000 Sailors were poor born Irish, often pressed men!

Or those soldiers songs of the British army, they too are mostly Irish ballads.
This really should be no news to anyone who understands the highly significant impact of the Irish immigrants in 19th C Britain.
When it is known that the majority culture (by far) in the British army in both the 18 & 19th Centuries was the poor Irish culture.
Irish born made up over 40 percent of soldiers in the British Army . Note that's just the Irish born. Of the remainder it is certain that a significant % of them would have been the children or grandchildren of Irish immigrants.

The Irish headed to where ever the work could be had, and they were going to get the hardest tasks and often lowest of pays.
The Irish congregated at every major British seaport.
All the docks and fishing industries of the 19th C were crammed with the impoverished poor Irish, who brought their songs and music.
Dirty monotonous and low paid work, would encouraged Irish cultural songs and memories of home.
The Irish Navvys on the Canals effectively invented the working and drinking mens working clubs of the North of England.

That Irish American music madde it way back to Ireland is accepted with ease, for what ever reason the Irish in Britain are lost and the supposed British culture gets the credit!
Irish music influence in Britain did not start with Lonnie Donegan or the Beatles or Morrissey or Oasis or The Pogues.

The folk traditions of Ireland have been preserved down the centuries. Our culture has been recorded and preserved for future generations to cherish and adapt. Gifts of time and heritage, these gifts are courtesy of the efforts of the compilers, the archivists and collectors of Ireland's traditions.

Tom Munnelly, one of Ireland’s greatest folksong and folklore collectors has died today after a long illness.
Born in Dublin in 1944, Tom Munnelly moved permanently to Miltown Malbay, Co Clare in 1978 to devote more time to working in the field of collecting folksongs. Tom Munnelly collected over 20,000 songs collected in his lifetime, and since moving to West Clare he collected over 4,000 Songs from local traditional singers. He recorded songs, music and folklore in most counties in Ireland.

A native of Dublin, Mr Munnelly is an archivist/collector with the Delargy Centre for Irish Folklore in UCD, and since moving to West Clare in 1978 he has collected over 4,000 Songs from local traditional singers. He has also recorded songs, music and folklore in most other counties in Ireland.
Tom was responsible for recording the most comprehensive collection of traditional folksongs ever compiled in the country.
Mary Cloake, council director, said he would be greatly missed.
“Tom Munnelly began recording and collecting traditional songs as far back as 1964,” she said. “He was a social historian and he belonged to a long line of distinguished field collectors that includes Seamus Ennis and Micheal O’Domhnaill. He will be greatly missed and we offer our condolences to his family.”

He had served for three years as a member of the Arts Council from February 1986 to December 1988. Tom was the chairperson of the Lahinch Folklore School and a professor in the department of Irish folklore at the University College in Dublin. Tom Munnelly has spent countless hours researching and documenting the classic ballads and traditional stories of the Ireland.
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Tom Munnelly received the honorary degree of Doctor of Literature from NUI Galway in recognition of his lifetime of service to the collection and publication of Irish folksong and folklore in Ireland. Mr Munnelly was honoured at the University’s summer conferring ceremony on Tuesday, 19 June, 2007.

Dr Padraig O Healaí, a former lecturer in Irish at NUI Galway said: “Tom Munnelly has made an immense contribution to the future of Irish folkore studies by producing an index of all the English-language oral poetry contained in vols 1 to 2000 of the National Folklore Archive’s manuscripts, some 18,000 items in all, and by developing a classificatory system for this material based on internationally accepted models. “Formidable as Tom’s feats as an archivist may be, his achievement as a collector of oral tradition is truly awesome. He has recorded well over 1,000 hours of song and lore and has been responsible for the most comprehensive collection of traditional songs in English ever compiled by any one individual in Ireland. It constitutes a very substantial enrichment of the National Folklore Collection and it significantly expands the database available to future scholars in this field.”
Mr Munnelly was a founder member of the Folk Music Society of Ireland/Cumannn Ceoil Tíre Eireann, has acted as Chair of the Irish Traditional Music Archive/Taisce Ceol Duchais and of Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy and has served the Arts Council of Ireland in a number of different roles. His close association with these bodies and his founding role in other local historical and folk music societies, folklore schools and singing festivals highlight his contribution to Irish cultural life.

Referenced in a documentary as the last of the song collectors, Tom Munnelly will be happy that he was not. Tom Munnelly and his kind of Irish, inspired younger generations, and so the song continues.

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Tom Munnelly Irish folk collector