Paper presented at the ACIS conference, Belfast, July 1995
© S. C. Hamilton 1995

It is very much the exception rather than the rule for cultures to remain isolated from those surrounding them. Intercultural borrowing is one of the main ways in which cultures change and adapt to change. This paper will argue that Irish traditional music amounts to an extreme case of such eclecticism, and presents evidence mainly in the fields of organology and historical musicology which suggests that it has been widespread, longterm, and in fact continues unabated.
I do not intend to become embroiled in the definition minefield. Irish traditional music for the purposes of this account is taken as being the mainly orally transmitted dance music for the most part associated with the peasant class from the 18th century onwards, and the oral song tradition, initially Irish language but increasingly in English, which forms part of the same milieu. Associated and derivative music forms such as ‘National Music’ and the more commercial ensembles of this century are seen as more marginal but still firmly part of the overall picture.
It is precisely because Irish music has such a strong identity, internationally as well as internally, that my attention was originally drawn to why this might be so. Investigation showed that in fact few elements of the current tradition can be assigned an Irish origin. Let us look firstly at the organological evidence.

It is important to realise the existence of a major cultural hiatus associated with the downfall of the old Gaelic order in the early 17th century, if only to counteract the popularly held view that ‘Irish music’ is one of the cultural inheritances of that period. The musical instruments of medieval Ireland are known to us almost entirely through the literary medium, with some small amount of graphic evidence. Surviving examples are almost non-existent. Without the combination of these two, the identity of many of the instruments is largely a matter of surmise. The harp is of course the best documented and the only case where there are any surviving examples. Otherwise the tiompán , usually interpreted as a form of bowed lyre, and several rather vaguely identified wind instruments, among which some form of whistle and trumpet are usually accepted. In fact it is difficult to establish the existence of bagpipes in this early period. There are several terms ( cuisle, pípa ) which refer to pipes, but as Donnelly has pointed out a piper is not necessarily a bagpiper, and it is much later, in fact the mid 16th century, before we can be really be certain that the instruments referred to are bagpipes, although it is very likely that some of the older references are to this type of instrument. It is remarkable that none of these instruments survive. There was a fragment, one section of a drone, if the photograph, which is all that now survives, is to be believed, in the Musée du Cluny in Paris, which was referred to by Grattan Flood, but this has apparently now been lost.
Of all these instruments, identity established or still mysterious, the only one which survived the political and cultural upheaval of the 17th century was the harp, whose central place in the iconography of Ireland was already established by at least the early 16th. Although the role of the harp in Gaelic society is well documented, the actual music that it played is not, and in fact the major part of our knowledge of Irish harp music dates from the end of the 18th century and this represents not the continuation of the Gaelic tradition, but for the most part the adaption of its remnants to the social reality of the period. The current use of the harp in Irish traditional music is a revivalist movement drawing on several real and imagined aspects of various traditions and normally using a different type of instrument and a different technique to play several different types of music under the Irish traditional umbrella, all presumably different from the original court patronised art music of the 16th century and earlier.

The instruments that we now currently associate with Irish traditional music can be for my purposes here divided into two groups.

1/Obviously borrowed instruments.
This is by far the largest group and consists of instruments the origin of which is indisputably not Irish. The fiddle, the flute, the free reed instruments, the fretted instruments, and the piano all fall into this group.
2/ Instruments normally considered native. Under this heading we must consider:
a/ The Harp. As mentioned above, this is the only contender in the role of survivor from the Gaelic period, but this perceived survival may be more symbolic that actual. It’s post Gaelic use is now examined.
Even the early attempts at revival of the harp which occurred as a direct result of the 1792 festival showed a move away from the traditonal harp in terms of construction, and in fact the instruments of the 17th century had begun to show some of these features. Some of the instruments actually used by these revival students, or ones very similar, have survived and we know that they were not made by any recognised harp maker, all of whom had presumably disappeared by the end of the 18th century. They were in the form of what is generally known as the neo-Irish harp, which was quite different in construction to the early Irish harps and was, in reality, more a scaled down and simplified version of the orchestral harp than any attempt to duplicate the native instrument. Twentieth century instruments, have tended to move yet further from the originals in that the brass strings so characteristic of the older harps have been abandoned in favour of nylon. From the point of view of technique, even at the 1792 festival the old long-nailed style was only practiced by one player, and modern techniques do not attempt to revive this. Although there is currently some evidence of a move towards a more traditional type of instrument, and even in a few cases an attempt to reconstruct the long-nail technique, the repertoire is now commonly the dance music originally associated with the other instruments, as well as some remnants of the declining 18th century harp repertoire. It could be argued that the current use of the harp is so unlike the original tradition, and the instrument itself also so modified that in fact it is more proper to see the modern use of the harp in a separate light. ( a useful parallel might be the modern steel strung acoustic guitar and the early instrument )

b/The Uilleann Pipes
The uilleann pipes are normally considered to be an Irish 18th century development from the earlier mouth-blown form. The earliest mention of the instrument is c. 1730 and the earliest illustrations and the earliest surviving examples show it at this stage to be a bellows-blown pipe with 3 drones, and one regulator.
The regulator, which is a closed pipe which only sounds when keys on it are opened by the player is particularly referred to by Breathnach as a native development, but here he is uncharacteristically mistaken, for in fact the principle was in use in the court musettes of 17th century France. The evidence of the distribution of other similar pipes must also cast some doubt on an exclusively Irish origin. The border regions of England and Scotland have given rise to several instruments which in their similarity to the uilleann pipes might lead one to believe that there is some possibility that the centre of development is more likely to have been in this region than in Ireland. The presence of makers of the union pipes ( as uilleann pipes were generally known up to the early 20th century) at an early period in Scotland, is a fact that may have some relevance here.
Finally, the earliest existing specimens of these pipes do not give the impression of an instrument deriving from the same peasant culture that had produced the dance music that was its major repertoire. Other European cultures have bagpipes which reflect the materials and technology of the culture which produce them, but the uilleann pipes, even in the early form use materials such as exotic timbers, ivory and silver which are more indicative of the culture of ‘classical’ music. The involvement of the middle classes in the form of ‘gentlemen pipers’ is well documented, another indication that the instrument may not have originally been an outgrowth of peasant dance culture, although quickly adopted by it. It is obvious that a lot more research, including in depth research into the physical characteristics of the bagpipes of this period needs to be completed before any definitive statements can be made. I think enough evidence exists therefore, at least to cast some doubt on the concept of the uilleann pipes and its major characteristics as a development of Irish peasant culture.
c/ The bodhrán
This is undoubtedly of native origin, although it is very similar to other traditional drums used throughout the northern hemisphere. Since its widespread use is a very recent phenomena in Irish music, and due to considerations of space I propose to leave the discussion of its role to another time and place.

The repertoire both of the instruments outlined above and of the song tradition provides more evidence of the eclectic nature of Irish music.
The song tradition, originally in Irish but since the 16th century increasingly in English, forms perhaps the most widespread aspect of traditional music. Although it might be tempting to assume that the Irish language aspect of the song tradition is native and the English language songs imports, at least in the sense of type and style, again there is some evidence to suggest that even the early Irish language forms may have had some foreign influences. The forms laoithe and caointe, now extinct, both seem to be directly related to forms which had been in existence since Gaelic times, and therefore have a strong claim to be original Irish forms. Breathnach (1971) has suggested that some of the elements of both these forms may have some relation to the music of the early church so there is some possibilty that even such seemingly unassailable aspects of the tradition may have had outside influence at some stage.

The common surviving form of Irish language song is amhrán which is typified by:
1/Stressed metre
2/Strophic form
3/Lyrical rather than narrative text
4/Solo performance
5/Rhythm characterised as rubato and/or parlando
6/Elements of melodic variation and decoration are introduced by the performer.

It has been suggested that this form of singing ( generally known as sean-nós , although this term itself only dates from the 1940s) may also have its origins in the music of Gaelic times, either in the formal court music system, or maybe in the music of the other segments of this society which presumably existed alongside it. It has also been suggested that there is a medieval European romance influence on amhrán giving rise to parallels between such forms as the aisling, the chant de toile, and the pastourelle. However the metrical form and the style of performance are almost certainly native.

Song in English spread throughout the country with the decline of the Irish language, and although there are in some cases direct comparisons to be made with the style of singing, songs in English are typified by the narrative ballad form. In areas where the sean-nós style is still prevalent, English language songs tend to be sung in this style also, but more commonly are performed in a more metric, less varied, and less decorative way, than songs in Irish. In terms of subject matter English language songs rely almost entirely on Ireland for their source. A few of the older ballads made their way from England and Scotland.

Dance music, possibly the most vibrant and varied, and currently the most active form within the tradition, is possibly the most recognisable characteristic of Irish traditional music both inside and outside the country. It comes as something of a surprise, therefore to most people, Irish traditional musicians alike, to discover that in this case many if not all of the major forms of this music and its associated dance have originated outside Ireland. There is some confusion about the terms used to describe the various dances which can initially be misleading in that the terms ‘reel’, ‘jig’ and even ‘hornpipe’ were often used in the sense of generic dance and not to refer to a specific dance type. This has led to erroneous claims regarding the antiquity of various dance forms in Ireland. It is perhaps worth mentioning at this stage that if little is known about the music of the Gaelic period, dance fares even less well.
The absence of a native word in Irish for dance (the two words in use, ‘damhsa’ and ‘rince’ are both English loan words), and the general lack of references to dance in early literature in Irish has even prompted some observers to speculate that dance was unknown in early Irish society. The first references to dancing in Ireland come at the end of the Gaelic period, and refer, it would seem, exclusively to Anglo-Irish and Hiberno-Norman society, which had admittedly become very Gaelicised at this time. The dances referred to are variously named as the ‘Rince Fada’ [interestingly the only one with an Irish name], the ‘Trenchmore’, the ‘Whip of Dunboyne’ etc. and from the meagre descriptions that survive, seem to have been types of figure dances involving lines of dancers, typical of much European dance at the time, and distinctly different from the step dancing which later characterises Irish dance. It would seem very likely that these dances were imported by the Norman French, and the ‘Old’ English, and they did not long survive the break-up of the Gaelic order in the 17th century. The type of dance favoured by the Irish speaking native population in the west of the country up to the late 17th and 18th centuries is largely unknown. The fact that it was an almost fanatical preoccupation of the peasantry has given us the many travellers accounts of such activity, but unfortunately for our purposes, little description of the actual type of dance involved. It might be deduced, however, that since the dance itself attracted no comment, that it was not notably different from what these English and continental visitors were used to seeing in their countries of origin.

The three main dance forms, and eponymous types of tune which accompany them, current from the 18th century to the present day, are the jig, reel, and hornpipe.
Investigation of the origin of the reel, probably the most popular form of dance tune, if not of dance, inevitably leads us to Scotland, where we meet with the confusing use of the term to simply mean any form of dance. The word may be of Gothic origin, meaning to weave in and out, and other uses of the word, even in modern English, carry implications of side to side movement. Breathnach suggests that the term originally applied to a figure of a dance, eventually came to refer to the whole dance. There also seems to be some connection to the term ‘haye’ in English which was in turn derived from the French ‘haie’ meaning a hedge or row of stakes. The implication here is that this term refers to a figure of the dance where the dancers wove in and out as if through such a structure. Breathnach, in his seminal work “Dancing in Ireland to 1700” says:

-the original form of the reel appears to have been introduced from France to these islands early in the 16th century, and since it is mentioned in a Scottish literary work of the period, the Alman Haye (Haye d’Almaigne) is the most likely candidate for the honour of having fathered all the reels of Scotland and Ireland-

The likely path of this distribution is from France via Scotland to Ireland, with the reel having achieved its current form by the time it arrived in Ireland This is supported by the fact that many well known ‘Irish’ reels can be shown to have been composed in Scotland, where they are equally well known under different names.

The origin of the hornpipe is, if possible, even more complex, and here scholar’s opinions differ considerably. Two main forms are often distinguished. The English stage hornpipe, which was a feature of theatrical performance in that country, and was a solo dance performed as an interlude in other dramatic productions, was noted for the virtuosic footwork of its various proponents. Secondly what Emmerson calls the ‘Jacky Tar’ hornpipe with its strong nautical associations. The tunes associated with these forms of hornpipe were often not in the modern 4/4 timing but in 3/2 , 6/4 or even 12/8. Dean-Smith in her Grove Dictionary entry on the subject distinguishes three classes, which rely on a different interpretation, and distinguishes, amongst others a solo form, danced by an individual or individuals which has a very ancient origin in Scotland and Wales, and which did not arrive in England until the 16th century. Complexity of origin, and possible Celtic origins aside, it appears definite that the hornpipe arrived in Ireland via England at some time in the late 18th century, and according to Breathnach was a step dance from its inception in Ireland.

The jig is probably the dance form which is most strongly associated with Ireland, and at various times attempts have been made to assign its origin in Ireland to the jig-like codas which O’Carolan appended to some of his Italianate pieces. The origin of the word is again complex and it is used in many European languages to describe a form of dance.
Breathnach argues that the origin of the jig in Ireland is in fact pre-O’Carolan, and suggests that it again was an import from England as early as the 16th century.

We must be careful here to distinguish the dance form and its origin, from the dance tune played for it. In many cases native tunes were adopted to the rhythms of the new dances. Popularity of a particular dance form could then inspire the composition of many new tunes in that particular rhythm, or the adaption of pre-existing pieces.

So far we have looked at the Irish step dancing tradition, which is essentially solo in nature, but since the mid to late 19th century the form of group dancing known as ‘set dancing’ has played an important role in Ireland. Its arrival in Ireland, for it is again an imported form, and its subsequent development and ‘hibernicisation’ in many ways typify the process which is at the heart of this paper. The dancing of sets of quadrilles became a craze in late 18th century France, and tradition has it that they were first introduced to this country by soldiers returning from the Napoleonic wars. Whatever the truth of this last statement, it appears that they were first danced publicly in Dublin about 1820, and from this first appearance in ‘polite’ society spread throughout the rest of the country, until by the end of the century they had become a standard form of dance expression, although step dancing had by no means disappeared.
The subsequent history of both dance and dance music in Ireland is of exceptional interest, and beyond stating that it continued and indeed continues to exercise the eclecticism which has already been demonstrated, is beyond the remit of this paper.

Summary and Conclusions
To recap on the basic argument.
It is proposed that Irish music is currently, and has for a long time been accepted as one of the most typical aspects of Irish native culture. However investigation of the following areas shows that in fact few characteristics can be assigned an Irish origin.
1/ Instrumentation.
The majority of the instruments in use are obvious borrowings from the European/American classical and popular tradition. This includes such instruments as the fiddle, the flute, the piano, the banjo, the guitar, the mandolin, the bouzouki etc.
A second group have been assigned a native origin. These consist of the pipes, the harp, and the bodhran. It is suggested here that the harp as currently used in Irish music is essentially an invented tradition, with little connection either organologically or musically to the harp of Gaelic times.
The pipes are probably the best claimant to the position of an Irish instrument, but certain factors point in the direction of this origin not being quite as certain as was once thought. It might be claimed that the centre for the development of bellows-blown pipes was in fact more likely to have been in the border areas of England and Scotland, than in Ireland, and in a different social class, than the peasant society of Ireland.
The repertoire of dances and dance tunes which form the great bulk of Irish traditional instrumental music form the next area of investigation. It seems safe, on the available evidence, to suggest that none of the dance forms current in the Irish tradition have an Irish origin, although the melodic basis of the tunes played for them has not been considered here and without doubt large sections of this body of material are of native composition. The undoubted Scottish origin of an important section of tunes for the reel are further evidence of its non-Irish origin. The Scottish connection appears very strong here, and it might be argued that given the exceptionally close nature of the ties between Ireland and Scotland in Gaelic times that it is splitting hairs to suggest that there is an essential difference between the two. However, as has been demonstrated above, Scotland has in fact been only a conduit in passing on forms which have in reality an English or continental origin.

The point of all of the above is not to suggest that as Irish music can be largely demonstrated to have non-Irish origins that it has no role to play in the formation of an Irish identity. Rather it is to encourage and develop thinking in the whole area of identity, what it means, and how it is constructed. It points out that a strong identity can be forged from disparate elements, where the important point is not origin, but the way in which these are incorporated into the whole.

In terms of Irish music this is of great importance in light what is probably the major area of discussion within the musical community.
How can innovation and tradition be balanced, without leading to change beyond recognition and the death of the tradition on the one hand, or its stultification on the other?
I would argue strongly that to further the development of thought in this area that we must concentrate on the process rather than the product, and that from a directly musical point of view, music produced by Irish process will be indisputably Irish, no matter what the origins of its components.

References quoted in Text

Breathnach, B. 1971. The Folkmusic and Dances of Ireland. Dublin: Talbot
1976. “The Irish Pipes.” Brussels Museum of Musical Instruments Bulletin Vol.6,1/2,1-15.
1983. Dancing in Ireland. Dal gCais Publications, Miltown Malbay

Buckley, Ann. 1990 “Musical Instruments in Ireland from the Ninth to the Fourteenth Centuries: A Review of the Organological Evidence,” in: Irish Musical Studies, G. Gillen and H. White Eds., Dublin: Irish Academic Press

Grattan Flood, W.H. 1904. A History of Irish Music. Dublin: Brown and Nolan.

Emmerson, E. S. 1971. Rantin’ Pipe and Tremblin’ String: A
History of Scottish Dance Music. London: Dent.