Obituary from today's Guardian
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Tom Munnelly


A leading authority on traditional Irish songs sung in English

Derek Schofield
Thursday September 6, 2007
The Guardian


Over the last 200 years, Irish traditional music and song have been noted and published by dedicated collectors, working mainly among ordinary people in rural areas of Ireland - and, in the case of Francis O'Neill, with Irish immigrants to America. A major focus of the collecting was instrumental music, and there has also been a fascination with the songs sung in the Irish language. Many people might assume that, by the late 20th century, there would have been little folk music left to collect from the oral tradition. Yet the largest collection of traditional Irish songs sung in English was made in this period, by Tom Munnelly, who has died of cancer, aged 63.

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For more than 30 years, Tom was employed as a folk song collector, but arguably one of his most important singers, John Reilly, was recorded before this, when Tom was still collecting privately, in his spare time. Reilly was an Irish Traveller living in poverty in County Roscommon when Tom first met and recorded him in 1965. It was the first time that the ballad The Maid and the Palmer had been collected from oral tradition for 150 years, and never in Ireland. Reilly called it The Well Below the Valley, and thanks to Tom's collecting, the song was given international exposure when it was recorded by the Irish band Planxty, whose singer, Christy Moore, also recorded several other Reilly songs, such as his version of The Raggle Taggle Gypsy.
Tom was born in Rathmines in Dublin and educated at Clochar Road technical school, before starting work in a knitwear factory at the age of 15. His interest in folk song started at scout camp and then in the hostelling organisation, An Óige. He started collecting songs to enlarge his repertoire - there were precious few published collections of songs available at the time - and acquired a tape recorder. Soon, he came to prefer the tradition, rather than revival singers such as the Dubliners.

In 1969, Tom's enthusiasm and rapidly expanding knowledge led to him becoming research assistant to DK Wilgus, professor of Anglo-American folk song at the University of California, Los Angeles. The following year Tom founded - with his mentor, Breandán Breathnach, an authority on Irish dance music - the Folk Music Society of Ireland, and he served on the committee until his death.

In 1971, Breathnach persuaded Ireland's department of education to establish a national traditional music scheme, and Tom became its first full-time collector of folk song. Four years later, the scheme was merged with the department of Irish folklore at University College, Dublin (now known as the UCD Delargy Centre for Irish Folklore and the National Folklore Collection), and, in spite of his lack of formal academic qualifications, Tom became the department's folk song collector and lecturer.

In 1978, he moved to County Clare to devote more time to his fieldwork. Still employed by UCD, he based himself in Miltown Malbay, where the great uilleann piper Willie Clancy had lived until his death five years previously. The Willie Clancy school - a week-long celebration of Irish music, dance and song with concerts, workshops, lectures and pub sessions - was already established in the town, and in 1978 Tom became its chairman. He founded the Folklore and Folk Music Society of Clare in 1982, and for its first nine years organised all the lectures, and later started the Clare Festival of Traditional Singing.

In the mid-1980s he was a member of the Arts Council of Ireland, during which time it established the Irish traditional music archive. Tom served as the first chairman of the archive's board, and continued as a board member until recently.

All the while, he continued to travel Ireland collecting folk songs. One of the most prolific singers he recorded, Tom Lenihan, lived just a few miles outside Miltown Malbay, and Tom Munnelly also recorded his wealth of lore and custom. A double album of songs, with an accompanying book written by Munnelly, was released in 1995, entitled The Mount Callan Garland: the Songs of Tom Lenihan.

A typical tactic in a new village was for Tom to ask in the pub about local singers. But not all pubgoers were interested in old songs, and increasingly he found and recorded singers in their own homes. For example, one of his best, Michael "Straighty" Flanagan, was almost missed after inquiries at the pub drew a blank.

John Reilly was not the only Traveller whom Tom recorded. "Singers are so easy to find among travelling folk," Tom once wrote, and an album of his field recordings, Songs of the Irish Travellers, was released in 1983.

In all, Tom recorded, indexed and transcribed more than 20,000 songs as well as a considerable amount of folklore - a lasting testament to his tenacity, as well as to the continuing tradition. He was generous with his time and knowledge, a recognised authority and staunch advocate of unaccompanied traditional singing. His enthusiasm for his subject - and his humour - shone through whenever he was invited to lecture.

Tom contributed to a range of periodicals including Dál gCais (the Journal of Clare), Béaloideas (the Journal of the Folklore of Ireland Society) and the relatively new Journal of Music in Ireland. He did not confine his writing to Irish publications, but also contributed to England's Folk Music Journal, the publications of the International Ballad Commission and the internet magazine Musical Traditions.

Last June, Tom received an honorary doctorate from the National University of Ireland at Galway for his services to Irish traditional music. A festschrift, Dear Far-Voiced Veteran: Essays in Honour of Tom Munnelly, was published just a few months before his death, with a distinguished list of contributors. In the introduction, the director of the Irish traditional music archive, Nicholas Carolan, described Tom as "an iconic figure in the world of traditional music".

Tom leaves a wife, Annette, who supported him in all his work, two sons, Colm and Tara, and a daughter Éadaoin.

· Tom Munnelly, folk song collector and archivist, born May 25 1944; died August 30 2007


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