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Ultimate Irish Traditional Music Reference Book

By Abbie Bradfield Mulvihill

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Anyone who is familiar with Irish traditional music, knows that O'Neill's Music of Ireland is a "must have." The book of 1,850 tunes was originally published in 1903 by Captain Francis "Frank" O'Neill with the assistance of a group of trad musicians he gathered together as members of the Chicago/Irish Music Club. The book is divided into the following tune types:

Airs-Songs
O'Carolan's Composition (referring to the blind, baroque Irish harp player, Turlough O'Carolan - A.K.A Toirdhealbhach Ó Cearbhalláin)
Double Jigs
Slip Jigs
Reels
Hornpipes
Long Dances
Marches and Misc.

Are you ready for the really interesting part of this post? Well, here it is. There is a free, online version of O'Neill's.

Now, since Mel Bay is distributing a print copy for publisher Daniel Michael Collins/Rock Chapel Press, a division of Shanachie Entertainment, it makes you wonder about copyright issues. However, I'm sitting here looking at the print copy, and while it says you can't reproduce any part of "this publication" without permission of the publisher, there is no actual copyright on it. The online version is not a reproduction of the Shanachie publication (which is identical to the original 1903 version). Each tune in the online version has been individually transcribed (multiple people did the transcribing). Additionally, the online version contains over 2,000 scores, while, as I mentioned, the original has 1,850. I conducted a few searches in the copyright catalog (1978-present) and I don't see O'Neill's listed. So, it doesn't appear to be copyrighted, but I don't have a definitive answer and I am no copyright expert. If you know the answer, please do tell!

OK, I can tell you want me to shut up and give you the the link. The 25 MB (listed as 22 MB) PDF version of O'Neill's online is located here (scroll to the bottom of the page). Don't say I never gave you anything....

Full post as published by AbsTracked on March 16, 2008 (boomark / email).