The flute and Irish history

[Conical bore]

Most of them were expats but not all. Most were born just around or after the famine, when economic conditions were somewhat different. They are mostly O'Neill's generation

Yes, and my point wasn't about where they obtained the instruments. It's possible that many of those in the photo were American made. It's about where they learned to play the pipes and carried the music forward along with the flute and fiddle players. There had to be more pipers playing in Ireland than just in the manor house, if this many made it to America and elsewhere in the diaspora.

[Terry McGee]

I wouldn't rule out a lot of them picking up the instruments and learning to play them only when they got to Australia, England, US or wherever. My father could only afford to buy an accordion once we had made it to Australia, he got settled into a reliable job as a carpenter with the Housing Commission, and we were allocated a Housing Commission home to live in. And this was in the 1950's, not the 1850's. But the songs and tunes were in his head, and so once he had worked out the box fingering, he could play anything he remembered. And of course what he could hear on recordings. The equivalent of hearing tunes on recordings back in Chicago being hearing what other musicians were dredging out of their memories.

Interesting the mention of the old blind lady who lilted Rolling in the Ryegrass. Technically, we don't need instruments. (Gulp, did I say that?)

But they do help, he added lamely....

[Terry McGee]

Interesting to re-read O'Neill's Introduction to his 1001 Gems : The Dance Music of Ireland. (You all have a copy, right?) After the acknowledgements, he spends a lot of time making what sounds to me like a pretty strong case for the antiquity of the music. See what you think. Interestingly, I feel he's sounding more forthright in this intro than we find in his later books.

[Terry McGee]

And just in case you think I've given up on matters horticultural in favour of matters more haughty and cultural, I was surprised yesterday to come face to face with a plant called "The Dusty Miller". I thought immediately - I know that as a tune name.



So, which Dusty Miller is O'Neill's #455 referencing? The plant above, or some chap grinding wheat in an inadequately ventilated workspace?

https://thesession.org/tunes/28

[PB+J]

Most of them were expats but not all. Most were born just around or after the famine, when economic conditions were somewhat different. They are mostly O'Neill's generation

Yes, and my point wasn't about where they obtained the instruments. It's possible that many of those in the photo were American made. It's about where they learned to play the pipes and carried the music forward along with the flute and fiddle players. There had to be more pipers playing in Ireland than just in the manor house, if this many made it to America and elsewhere in the diaspora.

Right I know. O'Neill certainly learned music and flute playing as a boy in ireland, after the famine, and the men of his generation probably did the same. I'm just wondering how much of what he learned was "ancient" and how much was an innovation related to the disastrous poverty of the decades before the famine, followed by the famine itself. You get a sense of Ireland as a country in crisis in the 1840s, and then the crisis comes and it worse than imagined, and then the island goes from a steadily increasing population to a steadily declining population. That kind of catastrophe would surely show up in the arts.

People often remark on how there are very few songs about the famine, but it's possible that the dance music O'Neill collected speaks to the famine in its own way--that is, it was a cultural flowering in the new environment the famine created, rather than being the product of unbroken continuity that as Terry noted, O'Neill did his best to frame it as. It's not surprising that a desire to imagine unbroken continuity should come from catastrophic disruption, and a bunch of expats.

You could certainly imagine that the music O'Neill remembered was not ancient tunes, but rather a form of creativity that rushed into the emotional and demographic void caused by the catastrophe, and O'Neill wanted to frame it as a an unbroken line stretching back into prehistory because all around him growing up was disruption and a broken culture.

[david_h]

When and how did the mazurka arrive?

[GreenWood]

In Switzerland livestock were kept under the houses to heat them, it makes sense. Pigs are kept as pets. A friend I couldn't call other than family, had a pig called Percival. Percy the pig. He got fat and they ate him. Any conversation of Percy had something of an air of confession, and ended in poignancy.

He (not the pig) had arrived in Spain with some friends on a fishing boat they had bought in England to leave the country. It sank off the south coast of Spain so that is where they stayed.

His finca had no mains water supply, and so he built a drilling rig, but the bit jammed at several metres depth, and it all became part of the scenery. I think it is still there now.

He told me of the well diggers, that even in the seventies a small outfit of men with pickaxes were dedicated to and available for digging wells by hand, that they would charge 15 or 50 (I don't remember which) pesetas for each metre depth dug.

When natural water was low, he would ask a neighbour called Canon who had a deeper well, and things being as they were eventually there was a falling out and we were left without water. So we bought about two hundred small firework rockets, and late one evening lined them up on the hillside above Canon's house, and while "Dame agua, DAAAAAME AGUAAA" was belowed in haunting fashion on a portable megaphone, we (as children) had the duty of lighting all the rockets. It was fun, but it didn't work.

In Spain, there are laws that oblige any inn or restaurant to serve water without cost. Several times I have called in for a glass of water.


People starved then also, even in the eighties. I remember him telling of a friend of his who had just starved, incredulous, and that no-one had helped, and with his own feeling of guilt somewhere.

At one point later, we would fetch water from the local fountain. That is how it was before mains. Every evening we would go up with ten five litre water bottles and fill them, for several months. There was often an old lady sat by the fountain, by herself, and we would talk. She told me of her childhood. We talked of schooling, and she said there was no schooling for girls when she grew up, they stayed at home. Yet, she was one of the most lucid and kind of person I have ever met. She said they had no modern entertainment at all, but that there was always something to look forward to, always something going on to bring cheer or amuse or occupy . People were closely in touch with the world around them in those days, and it provided all they needed. For sure, more work was done for less, but less was more because it was their own.

I'm just looking for all pictures of flutes in Ireland during the 19th century, will put post all found in a little while. 18th century art is very different for ireland, more thematic and much less documentary of local life. Similar goes for many countries, where almost all instruments drawn are part of higher society. So I guess that only leaves texts.

What is interesting is that I don't find one picture of a conical bore flute for 19th century, so that kind of disrupts the narrative a little... either there wasn't a great flow of used instruments from UK from 1850, or in fact flute playing just wasn't documented in drawings in Ireland 19th century and earlier though it would presumably have been common enough (e.g. with the imported new instruments).

Anyway, there aren't that many pictures, and most have probably been seen already by those here, plus the fact that what artist choose to draw is more anecdotal than proof. A comparison with number of folk instruments drawn somewhere where they were known common, say another country in 19th century, might give an idea of how valid artwork is to document popularity.

There are about five pages added to this thread since I last checked... will have to catch up.

[Mr.Gumby]

What is interesting is that I don't find one picture of a conical bore flute for 19th century, so that kind of disrupts the narrative a little...

There's stuff like this to be found. The card is from 1900-05 but that sort of image is fairly common during the late 19th century.




I can't post more images right now, a lightning strike nearby knocked out the internet locally this morning so I have to post from my phone for now.

If you look up Reg Hall's book online ( here), you'll find, if I remember correctly, images of dances and music at fairs that have pipers and fife/flute players (more fife than concert flute , actually). There are also paintings of dances and 'swarries'(soirees) that include pipers ot the odd flute and bodhran player. Not an abundance but there are some.
The shebeen in Listowel is a classic of the genre

You will have to ignore some of the paddywhackery and stereotyping in some of the images. As well as the nativist sentiments expressed in the text below the image above.

[GreenWood]

Many thanks for that link (click on picture to download), and I will read that. The pictures I searched are slightly older 1800-1900 , maybe twenty with flute or whistle in 5 hrs of searching. I will just drop all the links for anyone interested.

Erskine Nicol seemed to favour flute pictures, funnily it seems the same character in each, maybe.


Erskine Nicol RSA ARA (1825-1904) The Flute Player  1853

https://www.adams.ie/56894/Erskine-Nico ... lot_detail



Erskine Nicol Playing the flute

http://www.artnet.com/artists/erskine-n ... khoq2Awvw2

Similar except....

https://www.lotsearch.net/lot/erskine-n ... &order=ASC


Irish Flute player, said to be by Erskine Nicol

https://www.lot-art.com/auction-lots/An ... 11.20-hall


THE TRIO . Three gentlemen playing violin, flute and clarinet, from a painting by Erskine Nicol

https://www.abebooks.com/art-prints/TRI ... 5987152/bd




Possibly a flute player in background

Erskine Nicol RSA ARA (1825-1904) A Shebeen at Donnybrook 1852

https://www.adams.ie/50666/Erskine-Nico ... lot_detail







19th century whistle "Irish school"

https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Young ... C5D858280C


An Irish flute player dancing a jig

1832 Low, William

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O795 ... w-william/

Penny Whistle probably UK

James Clarke Waite

https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/penny-whistle-20524

A Moment of Leisure

A nineteenth-century Irish flute player c. 1888 in ‘The Schoolmaster’s Moment of Leisure’, a watercolour and gouache by the American artist Howard Helmick (1845–1907) in the collections of the National Gallery of Ireland

https://journalofmusic.com/editorial/moment-leisure


19th-century engraving
of a boy playing the tin whistle - unattributed no location

https://www.newschool.ie/tuition/irish-music-tasters/

An Irish peasant cabin with whistle?

https://www.maryevans.com/search.php?pr ... 0446&row=1

https://studiomatters.com/wp-content/up ... ._1840.jpg


Flute, itma but I don't have the link 19th century

https://www.itma.ie/imager/s3-eu-west-1 ... d62b98.jpg


A discussion with pictures

https://www.concertina.net/forums/index ... -you-tube/

1832
https://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b66/ ... eNight.jpg

From
https://thesession.org/discussions/34758

Courtesy Pinterest

https://ibb.co/pf5hFPR

Other 16th century

http://irisharchaeology.ie/2013/12/16th ... sh-people/

Bodhran history

https://comhaltas.ie/music/treoir/detai ... d_history/


List brass bands

https://www.academia.edu/38234853/Brass ... _directory

Related to temperance bands

https://web.archive.org/web/20140903001 ... page_id=11

Jaw harp

https://ttce.nuigalway.ie/irelandillust ... 1368023638

[GreenWood]

david_h

"Staying in bed to conserve energy in the hope of being able to prepare for the next growing season (if you haven't had to sell the spade) is a coping strategy that may look like helplessness to a 'reporter' (in the widest sense)."

Or a wounded creature will hide. However there is a broader theme, and that is the destruction of previous Irish social fabric (e.g. subdivision of land, earlier marriage) that might have placed Irish society as a whole at disadvantage in time of stress. Also, management of society and economy from Britain and not according to local reality except to avoid angry hungry mobs could be considered learned helplessness, because at an Irish national level absolute priority would likely have been policy of food security during such an event. The helplessness of having to ask the newer overlords for help, the supplication of accepting that where available, could be considered learned.

"Life for the poor people Ireland may have been squalid in a different way to in other countries but in terms of getting children to breeding age it doesn't look that different. Until the famine."

Single crop reliance for a large part of society, and lack of concern for that portion of society by ruling nation (or as PB+J says)

"What I don't understand is how the population in Ireland increased in number at the same rate as in England if it was all so much poorer"

Food supply governs population size, in Ireland new single crop reliance allowed more food to the poor, though Ireland also was productive of other food, the poorest did not have much access to that. I think PB+J answered this more clearly.

If you have a native population pushed onto one side of an island, where land ownership is also governed by outsiders, they don't just give up, they take advantage of any opportunity to strengthen themselves, and in this case it was the potato that allowed that. Apparently it was not all of the diet, but enough so that failure of the crop led to famine.

bigsciota

"What I do think, which is slightly different is that the music we specifically know today as "traditional Irish music" comes from a variety of sources and is both more recent and somewhat more (for lack of a better term) "middle class" than the ubiquitous tourist brochures promoting it would have you believe."

Ironically, much "middle class" music is recycled from folk music by later composers. You might have new setting or rhythm etc., but the basic melody is there. Where truly foreign music is introduced, it tends to really stand out and be promoted as such, kept within a specific circle. On the other hand, I notice a low level exchange of ideas and music between cultures at folk level, where ideas of the music of the other become incorporated into local music, subtly.

"The musical landscape was very, very different, and the genre we know as "trad" didn't really exist as a concrete, unified idea. "

"Trad" is outside looking in, or a modern concept denoting tied to traditional, or a way to describe own music to outsiders only, from my point of view.



PB+J

"People often remark on how there are very few songs about the famine, but it's possible that the dance music O'Neill collected speaks to the famine in its own way--that is, it was a cultural flowering in the new environment the famine created, rather than being the product of unbroken continuity that as Terry noted, O'Neill did his best to frame it as. It's not surprising that a desire to imagine unbroken continuity should come from catastrophic disruption, and a bunch of expats."


From where I am looking, the Scottish and Irish both lay certain claims to the origin of various music. That is their own discussion, and there is certainly a lot of historical overlap. If you search up on specific tunes that exemplify any of the music, you will find that they do go a long long way back, getting renamed, reintroduced by neighbouring cultures, restyled and so on. The changes in style, say the introduction of the reel, there older tunes were also used, and contemporary ones also written in similar combined style where popular, as should be. This is found in other cultures, for example Spanish baroque translation of older/traditional tunes is well enough attested. The idea that everyone had a bad time, forgot everything, were given new instruments and sat down writing endless new tunes just does not fit. Even less so if it is said those new tunes were in no way connected to the past.

For the rest of it though, well there are those that have, and that do, study tune origins in depth, and though there is not a very clear presentation of that that I know of, I personally leave the weight of the discussion to those better versed. It doesn't stop anyone scratching around for detail, or discussing in a lay manner. Same goes for textual documentation of instruments and estimates of presence, these are subjects of thesis that anyone could spend decades trying to figure out. However, that need not stop us wondering and searching out some of the detail.

[GreenWood]

"Musical instrument-ma- kers are in fact to be found in many of the smallest towns of Ireland^ and gene- rally among men of the lowest professi- ons. Some instances have come under my own observation, too singular to pass unnoticed. In the town of Strabane, a poor man, originally a hedge-carpenter, obtained some degree of excellence in making vi- olins and flutes, built a small organ, and was frequently called in by the most res- pectable families in the neighbourhood, to tune or mend piano-fortes, harpsi- chords, &c."

1809 Text search: flute

https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/p ... g_djvu.txt

1905 Pipers Club Cork

https://www.loc.gov/resource/stereo.1s27463/



"In giving up making pipes, at least professionally, in 1864 or so, the last known of the Coynes, John, was joining a trend that saw practically all professional pipemaking cease within six years. There may have been a number of reasons for this collapse, but it is difficult not to see it as a consequence of the Great Famine of 1845-8. Besides the pipers who died and emigrated, the Famine deeply affected the survivors, and more than one observer commented on the atmosphere of desolation that hung over large parts of the country. The long-established clerical antipathy to music and dancing appears to have become more intense in the post-Famine years, and to have had a greater effect in many areas of the country. Francis O’Neill frequently wrote of how the music and dancing in his native parish of Caheragh, Bantry, co. Cork, was
suppressed, which left a deep and lasting impression on him, and he articulated the
feelings of many of his fellow-musicians in America."

http://www.seanreidsociety.org/SRSJ2/a% ... making.pdf


Which would explain why much of the tradition was continued by, or is much documented by, "expats" . From where I'm looking though, the actual feel of the music mostly stayed in Ireland with the Irish, no matter the subsequent form of the traditional music being played. That pdf also has several references to German (transverse) flute making included, for late 18th century ( @ 1770 on).

[Mr.Gumby]

[

That pdf also has several references to German (transverse) flute making included, for late 18th century ( @ 1770 on).

Could that be the reason I linked it on page 3 of this thread when the Coyne flute was talked about?
The very same paragraph was also quoted and discussed earlier in this thread.

[GreenWood]

That was ages ago, and it deserved repeating

Actually, it was several things. The first was that Coyne's single (now untraceable?) flute I had read of occasionally without more info ever being offered , and I assumed the link was about pipes with the flute a mention, so I skipped over it. Already just trying to figure out flute making in Ireland is hard enough, and if I tried taking on pipemaking and other instruments also I would have more than the hundred pages or so open on my browser. However I landed on the page from a seperate search on flute, as happens often.

Then, there was part of a conversation changed at one point I think, but either way, your quote of that paragraph I took as reply to someone else because it was highlighted, and I think I figured I had read it already for that, so looked at your reply which seemed to someone else. Add to that that I set off partly in reply to PB+J on

"O'Neill's memories of Ireland were I think rendered rose-colored by nostalgia. He's remarkable silent about the famine and depopulation, for example"

And the paragraph you quoted stood out when I read it in the pdf, "famine desolation and suppression of music" being carried in the same paragraph (with O'Neill part of that ) . In hindsight maybe PB+J was trying to determin the credibility of O'Neill's account via his (non) stance on certain previous events in Ireland, or was trying to place emphasis on the famine ? However, I don't see why an Irishman in the US should nescessarily be turning over the politics of a tragedy, or why he should not be more concerned with actual current events that he saw as suppressing the music and culture that he once knew, and still loved ? I'm in no position to know better than anyone else, but at the same time I find it difficult to criticise O'Neill as "rose coloured" just because he was not (openly) active on the topic of famine or depopulation. There might be many reasons for that, and I only guessed at one previously.

[david_h]

Focusing on the inequities of life in colonial Ireland, especially from accounts of outsiders engaged in advocacy, isn't telling me much about a society in which some people were playing flutes, pipes and presumably fiddles. My point about staying in bed to save energy is that it is forward looking not helplessness. Even in non-famine times smallholder farmers on over-divided plots who can't find other work have free time but not much energy.

The article linked above mentions that, after the famine, some pipers had died. It's not clear whether they had died of old age and not been replaced or if they starved. Without a safety net one doesn't need to be a poor farmer to die in, or of, poverty in an economic downturn.

Getting back to flutes. I asked about mazurkas because I have read that the fashion swept Europe arriving in Ireland only a year or so after it reached London. I can't remember when but I think it was before the famine. I guess the better off folk were doing the dancing but someone, probably not very well paid, was providing music. The postcard linked by Mr Gumby was post-famine but also shows that European dance fashions where reaching Ireland.

It would be interesting to read a social and economic history of the time that covered the breadth of society, rather than just the poverty stricken depths.

[Mr.Gumby]

Breathnach, in 'Dancing in Ireland' says the quadrille arrived in London, Edinburgh and Dublin in 1816 and then goes on to track the various forms developing around the country. He does not, at a quick glance, mention the mazurka.
The 'Companion' tracks the mazurka from its development in Poland during the 1500s to its arrival in Britain in 1830 but does not specially dates the arrival in Ireland, just notes the popularity in Donegal.

The sets (of quadrilles) are still very much with us. They lingered in outposts and were revived into a wide popularity from the eighties onward. Existing polkas, jigs reels and hornpipes were adopted for the dances early on.

The postcard linked by Mr Gumby was post-famine but also shows that European dance fashions where reaching Ireland.

It is post-famine but I posted it because it is fairly typical of the scenes depicting dancers and musicians through the later part of the 19th century.

Here's another one, poorly executed as a photo montage (and poorly scanned, a long time ago). Note it's a whistle being played but held in a way that pretends it's a flute.