The flute and Irish history

[GreenWood]

O'Neill, born in 1848, remembers the years after the famine, and by the time he was 3-4 years old roughly half the population present in 1848 was gone to death or emigration. So any description of "tradition," from him, has to be taken with a grain of salt: he grew up in a radically transformed land.

At the deep end, with all respect and not to downplay.

https://www.persee.fr/doc/adh_0066-2062 ... 979_1_1425

Has a detailed look at demographic change in Ireland and its possible reasons, concentrating mainly on 19th century. It is worth reading for various details it offers.

The population graph looks like this

http://www.grantonline.com/grant-family ... 00-200.jpg


So population in 1865 was similar to around 1820, which itself was also higher than any time previously. So where exactly tradition was interrupted or transformed, if it was, is hard to say, probably in various ways at various times, but tradition is just that maybe - that which survives through it all ?

[PB+J]

No offense taken and thank you. I've read O Grada's work in depth--it's cited a lot in my book on O'Neill. There's a great deal of uncertainty in death figures regarding the famine. It's very very bad, but it's also hard to sort out famine deaths from deaths due to disease and absence due to emigration, especially since records--census, birth and marriage an baptism deaths, are quite poor in many counties

[Terry McGee]

The history and evolution of the Kilfenora are well documented. They went from flute band to brass band and as musical tastes changed, became a ceili band. I scanned photos from the same family collection of all these phases and some other local bands family members were involved in.

I believe the local church/priest sponsored the purchase of instruments. There, are again, plenty of examples of that. Paddy Murphy got his first 26 button Wheatstone concertina when his local priest kitted out the Fiach Roe band.

Corofin fluteplayer Brian O'Loughlin has one of the instruments from the old flute band, which belonged to a neighbour. I have seen him play it and have pic of him playing it (Eamonn Cotter gave it an overhaul).

Now one imagines that the local Catholic priest would not have been keen to sponsor instruments for the earlier marching band form, or even the brass band form, but might have had a lively interest in sponsoring the emerging ceili-band. So do we imagine that the earlier forms might have been sponsored by local English landowners? If each property funded instruments (and sashes?) for their peasants, a lively degree of competition between landholders might have been leveraged to come up with the goods?

[Mr.Gumby]

While there will be people who know who bought the instruments, I am not going to speculate any further.

Here's the next phase of the Kilfenora band:




Here's a zoomed in portion of the image I posted earlier, to get a better view of the type of flutes the band played (run of the mill band flutes):



I imagine some of these would have been played outside the band, for dances etc.

And here is one of those flutes, all done up and still playing well, just before covid landed:



I'll leave it at that and let the thread meander on.

[GreenWood]

No offense taken and thank you. I've read O Grada's work in depth--it's cited a lot in my book on O'Neill. There's a great deal of uncertainty in death figures regarding the famine. It's very very bad, but it's also hard to sort out famine deaths from deaths due to disease and absence due to emigration, especially since records--census, birth and marriage an baptism deaths, are quite poor in many counties

My only real experiences on mood changes in society aren't very conclusive, but they are also surprising. So for example in Spain in the late 80's was buoyant and natural, real and spontaneous. Then the 90's was tenser and faster moving. Then 2000 and Euro was almost a clash, a different gear and smoothed confused. Then GFC and it was sort of rarified, a bit manic and tense, then a slow empty depressed . That then went on to more organised, presentation, official.

These are minor changes compared to a famine, or to colonisation, or to industrial revolution though, and yet the cultural reality shifted drastically at each, including performing arts. Ironically, the liveliest authentic was when relatively poor out of those, when everything was much simpler also.

Historically, there are long events like dancing mania, which are unexplained but thought brought on by social stress, possibly the plague.

O'Neill's nostalgia, would that be from changes during the famine, or from leaving Ireland, or even simply a product of his enthusiasm for traditional music and of wanting to transmit the best of his experience ? For example, I remember flamenco in Seville in the early 90's and that street scene much dissappeared, and I feel a nostalgia for that. However when I visit the same neighbourhood now, I don't feel nostalgia, I feel reassured but also dissapointed...maybe it will all be back sometime ? Nostalgia can also be considered part of traditional music, as far as I know has always been a theme.

The following doesn't need any introduction
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3JrG95HhL2k
and here it is progress/"progress" that is displacing the older, more difficult but fuller life. However it is nostalgia that also carries the music and tradition through that.

I suppose we should not confuse nostalgic commentary from historic fact, but at the same time it would not be fair to deny what was meant, because surely O'Neill knew what he was trying to share with his portrayal and I don't think it was invention (and not saying you do either)

That the flute was most popular of instruments, seems likely (apart from whistle maybe, and I count fifes as flutes also).

That discarded conical flutes were picked up by locals. Though there is a fair amount of commentary (and proof) to this effect later, I don't see it as locals just being handed aristocratic flutes, say in the 1850's, and all deciding to learn how to play from that. I think they would have been taken up by existing players of flutes (and maybe whistles). A simple example of why I think that, is that now where there is no flute tradition in a local society, people just don't buy flutes even though they are readily available.

For sure new instruments would have brought a new life or different presentation to the music, but that would not have been out of nowhere, more likely a direction that also added to popularity of flute. People living in Ireland would have much more of a feel for how things were than myself, but outside perspectives are good for certain details as well.

For the famine, they are important but at the same time I think you just get to a point where to use numbers ends up being something of an injustice. I have read accounts of other famines, it isn't bedside reading. I always get the impression of there being a kind of "learned helplessness" at play, things don't work as they are supposed to (or have been adjusted/disrupted too much) and no-one knows what to do, even though from outside or in hindsight answers seem obvious. We forget how people react to that kind of circumstance, how reason and thinking decline rapidly with lack of orientation, with lack of energy. Most of us don't know, wouldn't know how to handle that, have no experience of that. I was previously going to link a first hand account essay by a violinist who was amongst first drafted in WW1, before being wounded and moving to America, he explained how his character and mindset changes, and amongst his (well educated) companions also, under duress (including lack of supplies). There isn't much I could say about it all, really.

[Terry McGee]

Thanks for those further images, Mr Gumby, this seems remarkable stuff to me. The brass band would have cost a lot to fit out - instruments, uniforms and presumably tuition! Do we have any idea of what years the various bands cover?

And wondering what the sashes visible on the marching band tell us. I can see a cross and a 5-petaled flower and perhaps a third icon? But it's a plain cross, not a Celtic cross, perhaps noteworthy given the "City of Crosses" abundance of Celtic crosses? The flower one of the several 5-petaled wildflowers that are native to the Burren? The Spring Gentian perhaps?

Oooh, so much to wonder about. Perhaps I should just pop over? It's been a while....

[GreenWood]

The book

The Musical Traditions of Northern Ireland and Its Diaspora

Which I will guess is known, has various commentary on the 18th century flute music in Ireland, as well as Hammy Hamilton's view on fife bands and conical bore flutes (though he doesn't venture into how much flute was encouraged by fife bands versus being already common as instrument beforehand). That is around pg 90. Boydell's 18th century comment doesn't distinguish flute from other instruments, but I think it is more or less given that flutes and whistles were a part of earlier traditional music.


https://books.google.pt/books?id=wD93mJ ... ry&f=false


... 18th century and earlier folk music, or flute playing, in Ireland just doesn't seem much documented at all, apart from knowing that both existed, and a few early music scripts . Maybe it is nice in a way left like that... not that we have much choice. Personally I would love to see an early wooden flute found in Ireland, even if it were 17th or 18th century...but earlier would do also .

[PB+J]

What are the dates on those photos? They look like early twentieth century, maybe late 19th?

It's been discussed here before, but why isn't there a flute tradition in American mountain/folk music? Why didn't the Irish settlers who came in large numbers before the famine--mostly protestants--play flutes? Or the English, for that matter?

Maybe they did, and it fell out of favor?

O'Neill makes the argument that the flute was ubiquitous because it was cheap and self contained: "From the "penny whistle" to the keyed instrument in sections it was always deservedly popular, for unlike the fiddle and the bagpipe it involved no expense beyond the purchase price. Complete in itself, the flute needed but a wetting to be always in tune, and disjointed or whole could be carried about without display or inconvenience. Besides, if not broken by accident or design it would outlive its owner. Soft or shrill, its carrying power was remarkable. Who that has heard the mellow music of either whistle or flute a mile away on a fine evening, will ever forget the experience?"

All this would have been just as true in the Appalachian foothills, no?

The fact that the flute was apparently NOT carried to America suggests it wasn't ubiquitous before the famine, and that what O'Neill depicted as tradition was actually something more recent.

I don't have any solid answers to any of these things.

[david_h]

...of the type of flutes the band played (run of the mill band flutes)

What do we know about the number of flutes in military bands and about their repair and replacement strategy. Potentially that could, over the decades, put a fair number of flutes into the second hand market. What proportion of players could buy new as opposed to getting long-lived (as O'Niell points out) instruments used or as hand-me-downs.

Something I haven't noticed (though I have read more about England than Ireland) is much indication of what proportion of the population were instrumentalists. What area were the members in bands in those photos (from Ireland or the USA) drawn from and what proportion of the local players did they represent? How does that compare with now?

Numbers are often lacking in social history.

[Terry McGee]

The same could largely be said of Australia, PB&J. Plenty of Irish came here, and brought songs and tunes which have entered the Australian settlers traditions. But not much sign of flutes or whistles.

"Soft or shrill, its carrying power was remarkable. Who that has heard the mellow music of either whistle or flute a mile away on a fine evening, will ever forget the experience?"

A mile away? I should sit down and do the maths....

[Mr.Gumby]

And wondering what the sashes visible on the marching band tell us. I can see a cross and a 5-petaled flower and perhaps a third icon? But it's a plain cross, not a Celtic cross, perhaps noteworthy given the "City of Crosses" abundance of Celtic crosses? The flower one of the several 5-petaled wildflowers that are native to the Burren? The Spring Gentian perhaps?

You'd expect the gentian, especially as it is still used in the logo of the Burren centre in Kilfenora. The shapes aren't quite right though (too rounded) and it looks more like cinquefoil (Dasiphora fruticosa), which is very common on the limestone uplands.

Gentians:

What are the dates on those photos? They look like early twentieth century, maybe late 19th?

That's about right. Turn of the century, probably, The photographer Joseph Arthur was active from the 1890s to the late 1930s. Most of that time he had a shop/studio in Ennistimon but worked in two other places. As you can see in the image, he had a studio in Miltown Malbay at the time the photo was printed, which put it in his earlier years.

All fluteplayers I ever met that were born during the first half of the 20th century maintained flutes were extremely scarce and hard to come by. What flutes there were, were ones sent back from England or the US. Or, alternatively, rough, locally made things. Micho Russell spoke of flutes made from bamboo washed up from the Ocean. There's anecdotal evidence that (19th c) pipers too often had small instruments made from local woods (holly gets mentioned), not the expensive well crafted old sets that have survived from the 19th century. Overall, country people had basically nothing beyond the very basic and that situation lasted well into the 20th century (and arguably can still be felt to this day). Instruments were rough, making do quality. The influx of good quality concertinas and flutes of the mid 20th century changed that a bit but I would suggest the situation persisted, speaking to (piper) David Power, who has a sideline of dealing fiddles, last summer he said there were no good fiddles in Ireland. Nothing like you'd find in auctions in, say, France for example. So he is bringing in loads of continental instruments.

I know a man who owns a flute by Coyne (the pipemaker, or one of them), probably the earliest Irish made flute I have seen. It's basically a baroque type flute and I doubt it ever played at a house dance (or was intended for that). Seán Donnelly made an interesting point in conversation about the pipemakers of the 19th century: Dublin at that time was the second city in the empire, not a cultural backwater (a baroque oboe made by Coyne is in existence). But the world of George Frideric Handel etc moved in was quite remote from the country people playing for the dances at the crossroads and these worlds didn't mix.

But not much sign of flutes or whistles.

Some fine sets of pipes made it over there though.

[GreenWood]

I will just play the part of contrarian, for the sake of discussion :

1821 "Over 40% of Irish who declared occupation were trades, manufactures and handicrafts" which declined to under 30 % later.

https://www.persee.fr/doc/adh_0066-2062 ... 979_1_1425
Pg290

Meaning any supposition (which was not made) of "rural poor" initially not affording to own/make a flute is questionable.

On migrants taking instruments with them

https://study.com/academy/lesson/americ ... facts.html

says gentry migrants did from England, or I suppose in Mr.Gumby's case from Dublin

Fife was common in America at least
https://thesession.org/discussions/5639


Or for comparison, how many other kind of Irish migrant carried instruments of that time are known...

A description of "travel conditions" for many Irish during the famine is included in

https://scalar.usc.edu/works/music-in-g ... -thru-1900

...few I should think, but that does not mean the Irish did not play music either then. Expression of Irish culture in the US (or Australia) during that and earlier times likely met with difficulties of some kind or another also.

Add to that that we don't really know what counts as being a traditional instrument. Most performances have a flute since anyone remembers, or one in twenty people own a whistle, or one in five have played one, or that if you go for a walk you almost always hear a flute or whistle, or one in fifty households have a flute ? This isn't well or easily defined, but I think the idea of an instrument being familiar "somehow" to just about everyone, is quite straightforward also.

I have read similar discussions on how Britain was full of flutes in 19th century, they are quite amusing, but inconclusive also. We just don't have much hard detail from this time, particularly before 1850, and increasingly so further back in time. Most accounts are anecdotal or partial, leaving researchers trying to piece together a picture from various sources, which is not easy.

[Ben Shaffer]

The 1 key Flute was a pretty popular Instrument in the late 18th century into the early 19th Century mainly played by Middle and Upper class Men in their own homes both in the UK as well as America. These casual Players for the most part were likely reading the music out of the numerous Publications from England and Scotland. popular at the time. There were some pieces from Ireland as well. The Music was generally 2/4 and 6/8 and were for the most part commonly used for the popular Country Dances at the time. Not that most of these Players I'm guessing weren't playing for the Dances, but only likely played for their own amusement. Here in the States a Casual Flute Player would usually buy the Publications at their local Post Office
Having played both Irish Session Tunes as well as the aformentioned 18th Century Tunes, I think I can say there was not a lot of Cross over. Although any of the Flute Players currently playing Irish Music that can read Music would have no trouble playing this Music If I had to guess I would say alot of Music was being played by Ear on the fiddle was being played in Ireland during the 18th century. If anyone is interested in some of the more popular 18th Century Publications I would suggest the James Airds Publications as well as Charles and Samuel Thompsons Collections of County Dances.
Interesting to think that these 2 distinct types of Popular Music suitable for the Flute were likely being played concomitantly

[sculptor]

Ireland was a hard place. I would like to use stronger language but Petrie said it better 'The land of song is no longer tuneful'. We had nothing but we kept our culture in our heads, it's physicial manifestation is secondary.

[GreenWood]

Flute was much played by middle or upper class... I'm not sure there was really a middle class then, more like aspiring gentlemen or something ?

https://digital.lib.washington.edu/rese ... 1773/11423


Is well worth reading, and the last pages have some tunebooks etc. listed. Again, most of the flutes from that time have dissappeared (others will know better). There is a picture of the Tuesday Club in there, a mention that Brown played Scots Airs and that many "Scots songs" were published. A similar study for nineteenth century might reveal something more of Irish influences, if it has not been done. The trouble is that all that is documented is that particular strata of society via music masters and performances, although there is talk of local dances and of taverns with flutes. I think there would have been at least some folk/street/traditional music going on.