The Irish Traditional Music Archive (ITMA) is committed to providing free, universal access to the rich cultural tradition of Irish music, song and dance. If you’re able, we’d love for you to consider a donation. Any level of support will help us preserve and grow this tradition for future generations.
ITMA holds serval 1,000 videos on approximately 15 different formats. These materials contain performances of traditional song, instrumental music and dance ranging from amateur field recordings to those made for commercial broadcast 1970s–2000s. A growing local, national and global community of practitioners and those interested in Irish traditional music, song and dance will have free universal access to ITMA collections through the act of digitisation and online curation. This video digitisation suite will be an integral part of the digitisation process of audiovisual collections in ITMA. The move from physical to digital democratises public access, which in-turn reinvigorates the living tradition. ITMA has a proven track record in reaching new audiences through its online collections which is borne out in its year-on-year growth in online engagement. Digitised materials connect a larger artistic community with archival materials to inspire new art.
The moving image is one of the most compelling ways of experiencing traditional music song and dance. There is a quality of immediacy and visual representation that helps the viewer immerse themselves in live performance in a way that few media types can. As such, film and video have the power to communicate the richness of this tradition to new audiences. The evolution of technology further bolsters these immediate and immersive qualities by making high quality video recordings increasingly fast, easy, and inexpensive to create. As a result, ITMA predicts that video collections in a variety of formats will grow exponentially in the coming decade.
Following the successful application for Community Heritage Council funding for “VHS to DigiBeta: Preserving Ireland’s Intangible Cultural Heritage through Video Digitisation” video digitisation expert Adrian Finn was appointed to the Irish Traditional Music Archive (ITMA) project at the end of May 2024. Based in Bristol Adrian, owner of Greatbear Audio and Video Digitising Ltd has significant experience digitising videos for a wide variety of customers including: archives, universities, libraries, artists, individuals, production companies, museums, galleries and other institutions.
ITMA staff worked with Greatbear to identify and prioritise video formats in the ITMA Collections. Appropriate playback equipment was selected and ordered through Greatbear in June 2024. The majority of the equipment ordered were legacy playback machines which could only be sourced on the second-hand market. Greatbear managed the purchase and delivery of these machines for ITMA. The breakdown of equipment purchased from Greatbear Audio and Video Digitising Ltd is as follows:
New equipment including an Apple Mac Studio with Studio Display, keyboard, mouse, specialised cables and software were purchased via Big Bear Sound which is based in Dublin. ITMA has worked with Big Bear Sound on numerous projects over the years and can attest to their professionalism in this area. The breakdown of specialised computer and audio equipment purchased from Big Bear Sound is as follows:
In advance of the delivery of equipment, ITMA prepared a physical space for the video digitisation studio in a room on the third floor of No 73 Merrion Square. Adrian Finn travelled to Ireland from Bristol for five days in August to install the video digitisation equipment and to assist with technical set-up including wiring and calibration. Adrian also oversaw the testing and quality control of initial video transfers.
On Thursday 15 and Friday 16 August ITMA staff attended two training workshops to learn how to use the equipment. These workshops were also recorded on camera for future staff training.
It is through generous support from the Heritage Council that ITMA has been able to develop this new video digitisation suite. Without this facility in-house it would be impossible for ITMA to view, preserve, and share the incredible video recordings that already exist in ITMA’s collections. This increased capacity also supports ITMA’s mission to communicate and share the value of traditional culture and intangible cultural heritage with the general public.
ITMA has thus far utilised this new suite to digitise videos from the collections of Tony MacMahon, Michael Tubridy and Padraig Noonan. ITMA looks forward to digitising many more videos in the years to come thanks to this new equipment.
