Tom Munnelly-collector of Irish song/story/lore

Subject: Tom Munnelly - Songfisher
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Jun 10 - 04:12 AM

For anybody within reach of Clare FM on Irish radio over the next two weeks, broadcaster Paula Carroll is presenting her two programmes on the work of Tom Munnelly, arguably one of the most important and prolific collectors of Irish song, story and lore in the latter half of the 20th century.
Tom collected in Ireland on behalf of The Folklore Department from the sixties up to his death a couple of years ago; his treasure-trove amounts to around 22,000 songs.
Examples of Tom's work can be found on the albums, 'Bonny Green Tree' (Traveller John Reilly), 'Mount Callan Garland' (Clare singer Tom Lenihan), Songs of the Irish Travellers (re-issued last year) and 'Early Ballads in Ireland' (in preparation for re-issue).
'Songfisher' will air on Clare FM Weds. 23rd and 30th June at 8 pm.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Tom Munnelly
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jun 10 - 01:40 PM

No "arguably" about it Jim. He was the man!! :-)

Subject: RE: Tom Munnelly-collector of Irish song/story/lore
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 19 Jun 10 - 09:10 AM

GUEST - Who are you? I thought this wasn't allowed!

---

Anonymous posting isn't allowed, Jim; but some people do it anyhow. We usually let anonymous posts slip by in the music section if they're innocuous, but we delete them if they have any hint of animosity. Please don't bother challenging anonymous guests. We review all guest posts, and delete the ones that are combative.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Tom Munnelly-collector of Irish song/story/lor
From: Goose Gander
Date: 20 Jun 10 - 05:01 AM

Any chance of hearing more of those 22,000 songs on CD?

Subject: RE: Tom Munnelly-collector of Irish song/story/lore
From: GUEST,John Moulden
Date: 20 Jun 10 - 07:03 AM

All the recordings are housed in the National Folklore Archive at University College Dublin. Unfortunately, for reasons of conservation, few of them are available for listening and, due to copyright restrictions, they may not be copied, though transcription is allowed. There are vague plans to issue some material but this awaits suitable funding; in these times we could wait a while. Does anybody have a few thousand euro spare?

Subject: RE: Tom Munnelly-collector of Irish song/story/lore
From: GUEST,^&*
Date: 21 Jun 10 - 12:54 PM

Should be able to hear those programmes live on Clare FM.

Subject: RE: Tom Munnelly-collector of Irish song/story/lore
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Jun 10 - 01:48 PM

thanks for putting this up

Subject: RE: Tom Munnelly-collector of Irish song/story/lore
From: GUEST,^&*
Date: 25 Jun 10 - 06:11 AM

Paula's item on Tom Munnelly is about 1 hr. into The West Wind program for June 23, available HERE

Subject: RE: Tom Munnelly-collector of Irish song/story/lore
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 28 Jun 10 - 04:25 PM

For anyone who has had trouble with the link posted by GUEST,^&* here's what I've found.

The link goes to
http://www.clare.fm/music/ClareFM%20trad%20archive
where there are further links to several programmes. The one identified as "The West Wind - wed - 23rd June 2010" goes to
http://www.clare.fm/music/ClareFM%20trad%20archive/The%20West%20Wind%20-%20wed%20-%2023rd%20June%202010.mp3?l=8&m=1
which doesn't seem to do anything useful (at least on my system).

So I tried deleting the last few characters, so that the link ends in "mp3", and that worked. Here it is as a blue clicky.

Richard

Subject: RE: Tom Munnelly-collector of Irish song/story/lore
From: GUEST,^&*
Date: 28 Jun 10 - 04:41 PM

Thanks for that, Richard. I hadn't the patience to wait for the download on my not-very-broadband and was waiting for a better chance to check it out!

Part 2 follows this Weds. June 30th at 8 p.m.

Subject: RE: Tom Munnelly-collector of Irish song/story/lore
From: GUEST,^&*
Date: 28 Jun 10 - 04:44 PM

Here's a press release from Paula Carroll, who produced the programmes:

--------------------------------
PRESS RELEASE



Travel back to 1970s Clare in song
with Tom Munnelly,the Songfisher.

Over the next 2 weeks on Clare FM, you can hear a 2 part radio documentary celebrating the life and work of the song collector Tom Munnelly.

Songfisher airs on Clare FM (96.4 FM) on Wed 23rd and 30th June 2010 at 8 pm.
The programme streams live on www.clare.fm.

Tom Munnelly was the last fulltime song collector with the National Folklore Collection in UCD. He lived in Miltown Malbay, Co. Clare until his death in 2007, and collected some 20,000 song performances - a huge volume of them in West and North Clare.

It is a lifetime's labour of love - one of the results of which was to capture a Co. Clare song tradition now largely disappeared. A monumental achievement - yet it is one which goes mostly unmarked, even in a county like Clare, with the richest music tradition in the country.

These two programmes examine that collection, in a wide-ranging interview with Tom Munnelly, recorded some months before his death - a death he knew was imminent. He paints word-pictures of some of the Clare singers who most deeply influenced him – Tom Lenihan of Miltown Malbay, Mikey "Straighty" Flanagan of Inagh, Katie Droney from Fanore, Joe Mikey McMahon from Mullagh. Through the voices of these singers – and many others now forgotten – we do some time- travel back to 1970s Clare.

Songfisher is presented by Paula Carroll. It is a Rag and Bone Production for Clare FM, and is made with the support of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland.

Subject: RE: Tom Munnelly-collector of Irish song/story/lore
From: GUEST,^&*
Date: 29 Jun 10 - 05:17 AM

Finally downloaded and listened to the first programme.Anyone interested in the nature and sources of traditional singing in Ireland really should make a point of downloading the two parts for repeated listening! Great stuff.

Subject: RE: Tom Munnelly-collector of Irish song/story/lore
From: GUEST,^&*
Date: 30 Jun 10 - 04:13 AM

Part 2 will be broadcast tonight at 8 p.m. local time on Clare FM

Subject: RE: Tom Munnelly-collector of Irish song/story/lore
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Jul 10 - 03:41 AM

Hi all,

I just donwloaded the podcast from the 30th June but as per Clare FM's webadmin whims they've deleted the podcast for the 23rd of Junes. I'm wondering if anybody knows where I might get a copy of June 23rds program? I've tried Paula Carrols' Rag & Bone site but there is nothing listed, and I'm awaiting a reply from the folks at Clare FM, if I have any succes I will post here.

Mike

Subject: RE: Tom Munnelly-collector of Irish song/story/lore
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Jul 10 - 03:55 AM

Mike
riddlesjim at g mail dot com
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Tom Munnelly-collector of Irish song/story/lore
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jul 11 - 05:45 PM

I recently acquired a Cd of various music from County Clare on which a woman Paula Carroll sang one song.
do you know of other cd's which carry her work ? thanks billmitch

Subject: RE: Tom Munnelly-collector of Irish song/story/lore
From: AmyLove
Date: 18 Feb 17 - 06:05 PM

There are a couple of radio documentaries about Tom Munnelly on RTÉ Radio 1:

Song Collector

House of Song

And here's a somewhat related verse (found here - which includes an interview, with Jim Carroll being one of the individuals featured) from Gleesons of Coore:

Tom Munnelly a collector of stories and songs,
If you asked him to sing, it won't take him too long.
Next in the line is Dennehy, Tim.
He does a great job in the Clare FM.

Subject: RE: Tom Munnelly-collector of Irish song/story/lore
From: GUEST,Guest - Rabee
Date: 19 Feb 17 - 07:35 AM

As the "pirate" referred to near the beginning of House of Song when Tom plays Lord Levett I am pleased to let folk know that the collection referred to in the programme is now avaible legally

The Collection is "Early Ballads in Ireland" and the original cassettes have been remastered and should be available from An Goilin in Dublin as a double CD. A marvellous collection.

It gave me great pleasure to work on the cassettes for Tom and Annette - a shame that Tom didn't live long enough to see it issued legally.

BB

Subject: RE: Tom Munnelly-collector of Irish song/story/lore
From: AmyLove
Date: 19 Feb 17 - 04:52 PM

Unless I went to the wrong place (I went here: An Góilín - CD Catalogue ) Early Ballads in Ireland isn't available at An Góilín. However, it's available at ITMA:

Early ballads in Ireland 1968-1985 edited by Tom Munnelly and Hugh Shields

Related Mudcat thread:

Review: Early Ballads in Ireland 1968-85 new CD

Subject: RE: Tom Munnelly-collector of Irish song/story/lore
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 13 Feb 20 - 02:01 PM

A few minutes on him from RTE, 1973

https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2007425786036159&id=1916419671803438

Subject: RE: Tom Munnelly-collector of Irish song/story/lore
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 13 Feb 20 - 02:19 PM

Folk Season; To mark the inaugural RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards which took place in Vicar Street on 25 October 2018, RTÉ Radio 1 presents an accompanying five part feature series exploring some of the myriad strands that make up the world of Irish folk music.

In Search of Song; English singer and song collector, Sam Lee, meets some of the Irish traveller families from whom the late Tom Munnelly collected songs in the 1970s. The programme includes original recordings by Tom Munnelly from the National Folklore Collection UCD and archive material from the RTÉ Archives - listen here.

Subject: RE: Tom Munnelly-collector of Irish song/story/lore
From: Jim Martin
Date: 13 Feb 20 - 10:42 PM

Thks Joe!

Subject: RE: Tom Munnelly-collector of Irish song/story/lore
From: Jim Martin
Date: 13 Feb 20 - 10:57 PM

My much belated response to your guidance re my post of 18 June 2010!