Supplementary online resources for Tunes of the Munster pipers 2: Irish traditional music from the James Goodman manuscripts, Volume 2 / Hugh and Lisa Shields, eds.

James Goodman (1828–1896), a native of Dingle, Co. Kerry, was a canon of the Church of Ireland and Professor of Irish in Trinity College Dublin. However he is now chiefly known as the compiler of an outstanding manuscript collection of more than 2,300 tunes held in the Library of the college.

The tunes were partly “taken down by myself as I heard them played by irish pipers &c.” and partly drawn by him from manuscript and printed sources. Goodman grew up in an Irish-speaking environment, sang and danced, is said to have played the flute, and later became an accomplished player of the Irish, or uilleann, pipes. His music collection was completed in the 1860s when he was ministering in Ardgroom in west Cork.

The first volume of this publication, edited by Hugh Shields in 1998, contained over 500 tunes marked by Goodman with a ‘K’, indicating tunes obtained from ‘Munster pipers &c.’.

This second volume of the edition contains a further selection of over 500 Goodman tunes. It includes all other Goodman tunes from oral sources, along with unpublished melodies from manuscripts to which he had access; it omits those copied from printed sources. It also includes extensive documentation and indexes covering both volumes.

It is accompanied by a substantial online index (see below for pdf downloads and html files) of all the 2,300+ tunes in the four volumes of the Goodman music manuscript collection. Each title is individually annotated with information about its musical structure and with references, where appropriate, to related items in print, in current circulation, or in other Goodman manuscripts.

ITMA would like to acknowledge the invaluable input of Lisa Shields in compiling and maintaining these resources.

ITMA would also like to acknowledge the input of many others including Fr John Quinn, Dr Áine Heneghan, Rebecca Epstein-Boley and MIDAS (Michigan Institute for Data Science) at the University of Michigan.

In this collection: