Tom Munnelly

Archivist Tom Munnelly dedicated his lifestyle to preserving the customs of Irish folk music, saving, transcribing and indexing a lot more than 20,000 tracks and starting the professions of singers including John Reilly and Tom Lenihan. Delivered Might 25, 1944, in Dublin, Munnelly started working being a machine operator within a textile manufacturer at age group 15. His desire for folk music was ignited at scout camp and nurtured throughout a stint with An Óige, the Irish section from the International Youngsters Hostel Federation. With time, Munnelly obtained a tape recorder and started collecting tunes, initially to increase his repertoire. In 1965, he befriended Reilly, documenting his rendition from the ballad “The Maid as well as the Palmer,” the song’s 1st official paperwork in a lot more than 150 years. (The Irish group Planxty later on recorded a very much beloved version beneath the name “The Well Below the Valley,” and through Munnelly’s initiatives also learned other tracks from Reilly’s repertoire, included in this his interpretation of “The Raggle Taggle Gypsy.”) By 1969 he was a increasing specialist in the field and was employed as a study associate by D.K. Wilgus, teacher of Anglo-American folk tune at UCLA. A season afterwards, Munnelly and Irish dance music professional Breandán Breathnach co-founded the Folk Music Culture of Ireland. When Breathnach persuaded the Irish Section of Education to invest in a nationwide traditional music plan, Munnelly was set up as its full-time collector of folk tracks. Four years afterwards, this program merged with College or university College’s section of Irish folklore, and he was appointed folk tune collector and lecturer despite his lack of regular academic qualifications. In 1978 the London-based Subject label released the Reilly collection The Bonny Green Tree: Tracks of the Irish Traveller, the initial commercial discharge of materials from Munnelly’s archives. The record was broadly acclaimed and immediately after he relocated towards the State Clare area to broaden his archival pursuits additional. He resolved in Miltown Malbay, previously house to the past due uilleann pipe tale Willie Clancy and today site from the Willie Clancy College, a weeklong special event of Irish music, dance, and lifestyle — Munnelly was quickly appointed its chairman. Around once, he fulfilled and began documenting Tom Lenihan, an area singer with an abundance of Irish tracks and folklore to talk about. (The double record The Support Callan Garland: Tracks through the Repertoire of Tom Lenihan was finally released in 1994, along with a book compiled by Munnelly.) He journeyed from city to town, going to pubs and requesting employees and customers about local performers — he frequently recorded his topics within their homes, on the way unearthing now-celebrated numbers including Michael “Straighty” Flanagan and Junior Crehan (the second option is the subject matter of the acclaimed two-part research released in the educational journal Béaloideas). Munnelly founded the Folklore and Folk Music Culture of Clare in 1982, arranging most of its lectures for near ten years. He also released the Clare Event of Traditional Performing, and also offered for a long time as an associate from the Arts Council of Ireland. In every, Munnelly recorded more than 1,500 tapes of folk tunes and folklore, the biggest and most extensive assortment of traditional track ever published by any one specific. After an extended battle with malignancy, he passed away in Miltown Malbay on August 30, 2007.