COLLECTIONS

In its premises at 73 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, ITMA preserves forpublic access the largest collection in existence of the multimediamaterials of Irish traditional music. It currently holds more than

34,000 commercial and non-commercial sound recordings

28,000 books, booklets, serials, theses and manuscripts

20,000 photographs, negatives and small paper images

7,000 ballad sheets and items of sheet music

6,000 interactive music scores

4,000 videotapes and DVDs

INFOrMATION

ITMA also holds the largest body in existence of discographical,bibliographical, visual and filmographical information about Irishmusic, contemporary and historic, organised on customised computerdatabases, indexes and stock-lists.

More than 1,000,000 content items are at present catalogued on theITMA Online Catalogues, a unique resource available worldwide atwww.itma.ie. ITMAregularly compiles and publishes an onlinecurrent information resource recent Publications & Acquisitions,which lists new commercial sound recordings and DVDs, books,articles and serials, and donations of materials at www.itma.ie/news.

SCOPE

ITMAs areas of interest cover the performance traditions of the islandof Ireland and of the Irish diaspora Irish-Britain, Irish-America, Irish-Australia, etc. and those of all other performers of Irish traditionalmusic throughout the world. In its attitude to the Irish and connectedtraditions, the Archive defines traditional music in a broad andinclusive way.

AIMS

The aims of ITMA are

To collect all the significant materials of Irish traditional musicproduced by others, and to make a representative collection of thetraditional music of other countries. It does this through the donation,copying and purchase of materials.

To create new materials and new information. It does the formerby means of a programme of audio and video recording in the fieldand in the ITMA recording studio. This programme has recorded some2,000 performers since 1993, and in addition has recorded lectures,public recitals and concerts, and other traditional music events. Newinformation is created through research and publication by ITMAstaff, and through their computer organisation of information.

To preserve these materials securely for present use and for futuregenerations. It does this by such techniques as binding and securitycopying, by keeping materials in specialised archival and digitalstorage (currently with over 60 terabytes of capacity), and especiallyby digitising materials to different formats in an ongoing programme.

To organise the materials and information held by ITMA. It doesthis by such library techniques as accessioning, classifying, catalogu-ing and indexing. From its foundation ITMA has taken advantage ofthe development of information technology, and its holdings areorganised on a networked computer system to an unprecedenteddegree of detail. This digital control of information is a major aspectof ITMAs work, and is the basis of its dissemination of informationthrough the Internet. It has recently upgraded its databases andmigrated them to a cloud-based library management system.

To make its materials and information as widely available aspossible to the general public, consistent with the preservation ofmaterial and within the limitations of copyright law and ITMAresources. It does this by giving full direct reference access to visitorsto ITMAs public facility, and also remote access by phone, email, fax,post and Internet; by extensive broadcasting and lecturing, exhibitingand publishing; and by cooperating with a range of other organisationsengaged in the music. ITMA thereby vigorously supports the livingtradition and contemporary traditional artists and audiences, and alsoenables the study of the historic past of Irish music.

ITMAs secondary aim, of collecting traditional music from othercountries in a representative way, is to provide a national access pointto these musics and to the world of ethnomusicology. It has aparticular coverage of those traditions closest to the Irish: the Scottish,Manx, English, Welsh, Australian, and North American.

PrEMISES

In recognition of its status as a national archive of Irish traditionalmusic, ITMA has achieved significant support from the Irish State. Ithas been allocated a historic Georgian house in central Dublin as itspremises through the Office of Public Works, which has conservedand restored the building to the highest standards.

PUBLIC ACCESS

ITMAs premises include a large access facility, open to the generalpublic, in which its materials and information are made fully availablefor reference to all personal visitors, without qualification and free ofcharge. Guidance to the collections and catalogues is given, as wellas general information and consultancy on the music. Services arebilingual in English and Irish, as arises from the nature of thecollections. No appointment is needed for a general visit. Public hoursare 10 am to 5 pm, Monday to Friday, with late opening on Thursdayevenings and all-day opening on one Saturday each month.

A limited information service is also given directly by phone, email,post and fax. Materials and information are also made availablethrough lectures, exhibitions and publications by ITMA staff, andthrough ITMAs extensive cooperation with the performing, teaching,broadcasting, publishing and archival activities of others. Materialscan be copied, but only in accordance with copyright law and archiveresources; users must arrange copyright clearance where necessary.

In an initiative which began in July 2008when ITMA celebrated the 21st anniversaryof its establishment, its digitised materials andinformation are being made available world-wide. A systematic programme is in progressof making its computerised catalogue recordsand sample digitised materials accessible onthe Internet via its website www.itma.ie. Newmaterial and information contemporary andhistoric sound recordings, ballad and musicsheets, printed collections of song,instrumental music and dance, photographsand other images, and interactive musicscores are added to the site every month.

FACILITIES

ITMAs premises have public areas equipped for listening to, viewing,reading and studying items from the collections, and accessing itsdatabases; an audio and video recording studio; specialist rooms forthe preservation, processing, copying and cataloguing of audio, video,manuscript and print materials; reception and administrative areas;and specialist storage areas. Under certain conditions laptops andcameras may be used.

USErS

ITMA is widely used on a daily basis. Users include singers,musicians, dancers, traditional music followers of all kinds, studentsat all levels, teachers, researchers and writers, librarians, broadcastersand publishers, arts administrators, and the general public. Asignificant number of ITMAs visitors come from abroad, and a newworldwide community of remote users is being created throughinteraction with its website.

dONATIONS & OTHEr ACQUISITIONS

The ITMA collection has grown to its present size as the result ofwidespread public support from many individuals and manyinstitutions. Its foundation collection is the Breandn BreathnachCollection, a series of large and unique resources created by the greatexpert on Irish traditional music who died in 1985 and donated byhis family. In addition, ITMA now owns a large number of otherspecial collections initially made by private collectors, which theyhave entrusted to it. Prominent among these is the Hugh ShieldsCollection, which has an emphasis on traditional song and has beena source of publications. Copies of material have been acquired frommajor institutional collections such as those of BBC Radio, RTRadio and Television, TG4 Television, the National Library ofIreland, the Bodleian Library, the Library of Congress, the BritishLibrary, the Boston Public Library, etc.

PUBLICATIONS

ITMA has published major printed works: Tunes of the MunsterPipers 12: Irish Traditional Music from the James GoodmanManuscripts, two volumes of 1,050 pre-Famine melodies edited byHugh & Lisa Shields; All the Days of His Life: Eddie Butcher in HisOwn Words, songs and oral history from north Co Derry by the sameeditors (with 3 CDs); A Collection of the Most Celebrated IrishTunes (1724), a facsimile edition of the first collection of Irish musicby Nicholas Carolan; and The Irish Music Manuscripts of EdwardBunting (1773-1843): An Introduction and Catalogue by ColetteMoloney, a guide to 1,000 18th- and early 19th-century melodiesand 500 song texts. Audiovisual publications include The WestmeathHunt: William Mullaly, the First Irish Concertina Player on Record,historic recordings of the 1920s remastered by Harry Bradshaw.Other significant publications are in preparation.

BrOAdCASTING PArTNErSHIPS

ITMA cooperates with the national broadcasters RT Radio, RTTelevision, and TG4. In a radio project the archives of Irishtraditional music of RT Radio, dating back to the 1940s, are beingcopied and catalogued for public access in ITMA. Over 15,000 itemshave been processed to date. In television projects ITMA staff haveresearched since 1994 the traditional music holdings of RTTelevision (19611994) and other television and film archives suchas those of Ulster Television. The Director of ITMA has presentedfrom archival footage the longest-running ever TV programme onIrish music, in twenty-eight series from 1994 to 2014 , in English as

Come West along the Road on the nationalbroadcaster RT and in Irish as Siar anBthar on the Irish-language channel TG4.More than 1,200 historic performers of Irishtraditional music have been brought to thescreen, and four RT-published DVDs ofselected performances have been produced.Live audiences of up to a quarter of amillion viewed each episode, which waslater seen on the RT and TG4 Players.

and a mass of other materials such as posters, flyers, programmes andcatalogues. New items are acquired on publication, and the collectionsare constantly growing. Donation of all materials is encouraged.

Some 13,000 digitised and contextualised items from the collectionshave been published online to date as part of a systematic ongoingmonthly publication programme: audio playlists, printed and manu-script collections, image galleries, video playlists, interactive musicscores, original articles and Discover pages. They are made availablethroughout the world in the ITMA Online Collections on the ITMAwebsite at www.itma.ie, and on the ITMAVideos YouTube channel.

Digitised materials are also presented online on the ITMA website ina number of ongoing microsites which bring together thematicallylinked multimedia materials. To date these are the Inishowen SongProject (2,000 items related to the singers and songs of the Inishowenpeninsula, Co Donegal); the PW Joyce Irish Music Microsite (2,500published and hitherto unpublished tunes, songs and other items, thelegacy of a 19th-century Co Limerick collector); the Giln SongProject (1,000 items related to the singers and songs of the GilnSingers Club of Dublin, founded in 1979), and Port (a collection of6,000 interactive music scores to date which enables computer play-back, pitch and tempo control, music analysis and score printing).

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ExHIBITIONS

Other ITMA outreach activities include two travelling audiovisualexhibitions. The Northern Fiddler features images, texts and recordingsof Donegal and Tyrone fiddle players of the 1970s, collected andcreated by Allen Feldman and Eamonn ODoherty. This was theopening exhibition of the Ceol traditional music centre in Dublin, andit has since been shown in such venues as the Fowler Museum of theUniversity of California at Los Angeles, Glucksman Ireland House inNew York, and the Re-Imagining Ireland conference in Virginia. TheyLove Music Mightily is a cooperative exhibition of the Ulster Folk &Transport Museum and ITMA which features contemporary traditionalperformers throughout Ireland. This has been shown in such venues asthe Museum at Cultra outside Belfast, at the National Museum ofIreland at Collins Barracks in Dublin, Fermanagh County Museum inEnniskillen, the Glr Irish Music Centre in Ennis, and the MillenniumForum in Derry. These exhibitions are now virtual, available online atwww.itma.ie.

OTHEr COOPErATION

ITMA, itself a publisher, has actively cooperated with many otherpublishers in their productions, and hundreds of publicationsacknowledge this. Cooperative projects have been with The Journal ofMusic (current discography, bibliography, filmography, articles, andarchival images), Na Pobair Uilleann (articles for their newsletter AnPobaire; archival items), Gael Linn (Seolta Sidte, CD publication),the Arts Council of Northern Ireland (Exploring Trad, DVDpublication), Dublin City Libraries (Robert Emmet and Songs ofRebellion, booklet and CD publication), Four Courts Press (Songs ofElizabeth Cronin, CD publication), William Kennedy Piping Festival(Live Recordings, CD publication), Alan Lomax Archive (ColumbiaLibrary of Folk and Primitive Music: Ireland, CD publication), PaveePoint Travellers Education Centre (Whisht, Keepers of the Flame, TheRaineys, CD publications), Cl Iar-Chonnachta (Leabhar Mr nanAmhrn, book publication), the Ward Irish Music Archives,Milwaukee (The Francis ONeill Cylinders), and many others.

LEGALITIES

ITMA is a Company Limited by Guarantee, and as such keeps auditedaccounts and makes annual returns to the Companies Office. It is amember of the International Association of Sound Archives, theInternational Association of Music Libraries, and many otherinternational and national bodies. It has been registered as a ScientificSociety by the Registrar of Friendly Societies, and is recognised bythe Revenue Commissioners both as a Charity and as an ApprovedBody under the gifting terms of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997.

BOArd

The operations of ITMA are directed by a Board of directors withperforming, collecting, broadcasting, archival, financial, marketing,HR and management experience. A third of the members are replacedannually by election. The current Board is Dermot McLaughlin(Chairman), Tom Sherlock (Treasurer), John Blake, Tara Connaghan,Rnn Galvin, Cathal Goan (former Chairman), Johnny McCarthy,Clodach McGrory, Brian Montague and Dr Siobhn N Laoire.

Former Board members are Finbar Boyle, Mire Breatnach, Garech aBrn, Dr amon de Buitlar, Ciaran Carson, Rab Cherry, BrdCranitch, Dr Matt Cranitch, Michael Crehan, Dr Aileen Dillane, DrLiz Doherty, Dr Catherine Foley, Paddy Glackin, Dr Colin Hamilton,David Hammond, Robbie Hannan, ine Hensey, Ted Hickey, DrCaoimhn Mac Aoidh, Liam Mac Con Iomaire, Aibhln McCrann, GayMcKeon, Liam McNulty, Mary Mitchell, Dr John Moulden, TerryMoylan, Paddy Mullarkey, Dr Tom Munnelly (former Chairman),Mire N Chileachair, Neansa N Choisdealbha, Nirn NGhrdaigh, Eils N Shilleabhin, Pdraign N Uallachin, amonn Brithe, Dr Pdraig Cearbhaill, Dr Proinsias Conluain, LiamOConnor, Niall ODowd, Con Drisceoil, Meait J Shamuis Fatharta, Liam OFlynn, Gerry OHanlon, Dr Mire O'Keeffe, DrLillis Laoire, Professor Breandn Madagin, Muiris Rchin,Eoin Maidhc Silleabhin, Professor Mchel Silleabhin(former Chairman), Dr Hugh Shields, Dr Martin Stokes, MichaelTubridy, ine U Cheallaigh, Professor Ronach u gin, EithneVallely, Dr Fintan Vallely, Dr Bill Whelan and Roisn White.

ITMA has also benefited from the active involvement of many othersin its work, including its co-founder Harry Bradshaw, Maeve Carolan,Kate ODwyer, Glenn Cumiskey, Orla Henihan, Edel McLaughlin,Sen Corcoran, Clona N Shilleabhin, Peter Browne, Tom Fuller,Brian Masterson, Lisa Shields, and its very many donors of material.

STAFF

ITMA staff consists of full-time and part-time employees:

Nicholas Carolan Director

Sadhbh Nic Ionnraic Administrative Officer

Risn N Bhriain Secretary

Maeve Gebruers Printed Materials Officer

Treasa Harkin Melodies & Images Officer, IT

Elaina Solon Sound Recordings Officer

Jackie Small Sound Archivist

Niall Hackett Digitisation Officer

Grace Toland Librarian

Danny Diamond Field Recordings Officer, IT

Brian Doyle Digitisation Officer

Piaras Hoban Digital Projects Officer

Sen Caverly Archive Assistant

Joan McDermott, Sound Recordings Officer, is on career break.

FUNdING

ITMA would not exist without the state funding which is provided toit through the arts councils, south and north. It was founded in 1987as the result of initiatives from the traditional music community anda policy decision of the Arts Council/ An Chomhairle Ealaon whichappointed its first Board and provided it with its constitution. It isfunded year-on-year by the Arts Council/ An Chomhairle Ealaon inDublin and is among the top ten organisations funded by the Council.It is also funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland in Belfast,and by individual donors, especially through its support group Friendsof the Archive. It has received project funding from sponsors such asthe Heritage Council, the Ireland Newfoundland Partnership, theMchel Domhnaill Trust, the Temple Bar Cultural Trust, TrinityCollege Library, and other bodies. Currently it receives funding fromthe European Commission for its participation in Europeana Sounds,an international consortium of music archives and libraries. In additionit receives support in kind from publishers and hundreds of privatedonors, and from the State through the Office of Public Works. Likearchives and libraries everywhere, ITMA's main costs are labour costs.

AWArdS

As well as holding a Gulbenkian Museums and Archives award for'Best Collections Care' , ITMA has recently been chosen by theInternational Association of Music Libraries (UK & Ireland) as oneof the winners of its 'Excellence Award for Music Libraries' for theyears 20142015. In 2015 it was awarded a 'Gradam Comaoine' forits services to the traditional music community by the national Irish-language television station TG4.

FUTUrE

ITMAs need for adequate permanent premises has been met, and ithas been able to maintain its staff numbers in the financial crisis ofrecent years through the support of both Arts Councils and otherfunding. It has been enabled to press ahead with its programmes ofbuilding up its collections and improving its information services tothe public, with a range of activities and development plans that fit itsguiding principles of public access and public education. Itspriority in the immediate future is its ongoing programme ofpromoting Irish culture by making its digitised materials and uniquecatalogues available worldwide via the Internet at www.itma.ie.

Irish Traditional Music ArchiveTaisce Cheol Dchais ireann

73 Merrion Square, Dublin 2tel. +353-(0)1-661 9699

www.itma.ie

National public archive, information and resource centre forthe traditional song, instrumental music and dance of Ireland

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