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In 2024, musicians around the world are marking the 50th anniversary of the untimely passing of Denis Murphy (1910–1974), one of the most beloved and missed heroes of Irish music who exemplified the Sliabh Luachra fiddle style. Denis Murphy was the embodiment of an artist living his art daily and his jovial larger-than-life personality has been an inspiration to many. Yet, studying Denis Murphy’s music has for years presented a challenge with its public scope limited to three classic recordings of Kerry fiddlers and a posthumous solo album compiled from archival materials (now out of print).
In the recent few years, the amount of Denis Murphy materials accessible in traditional music archives has increased exponentially thanks to the renewed digitisation efforts. A very important body of such materials is stored at ITMA, with hours of high-quality recordings of Denis Murphy collected in Sliabh Luachra in late 1960s and early 1970s and over two hundred cards with transcriptions and notes waiting to be explored. This wealth of materials – the Breandán Breathnach Collection of reel-to-reel recordings and catalogue cards – is now more accessible than ever after mass-scale rehousing and digitisation.
Working with Denis Murphy’s archival materials opens up an entire new world of tunes and musicians of the era, reveals the true richness of the Sliabh Luachra fiddle hero’s repertoire and brings to light new and forgotten facts that would have been otherwise lost. The recordings, many of them made in the relaxed setting of Denis Murphy’s house in Lisheen, Co. Kerry and other private dwellings, demonstrate the pure drop style of playing from the area and a wide range of tunes, some of which became widely known and played in the years after while others have never been heard by most modern listeners. The CICD cards handwritten by Breandán Breathnach not only complement the recordings and provide the transcriptions but at times contain crucial details about the musicians and the sources of their music. The collection helps expand the traditional music context for players, listeners and researchers alike and it is important that more people become aware of its contents.
To highlight the valuable archival materials and celebrate Denis Murphy’s musical legacy, ITMA recently allowed fiddle player Anton Zille – a Russian-born, Serbian-based web developer, editor and musician specialising in the Sliabh Luachra tradition – examine some 218 CICD cards related to Denis Murphy, together with some of the associated recordings. Anton has studied hundreds of tunes from the repertoire of Denis and his musical partners, helping him develop a better understanding of the sources and influences that shaped the Kerry fiddler’s inimitable style. He is the author of a prototype web project that helps navigate through Denis Murphy’s music and resources. This also allows him to connect the clues scattered across the internet and archival materials and piece together the missing details such as the names and the origins of Denis Murphy’s tunes.
The findings from Anton’s research on Denis Murphy in the Breandán Breathnach Collection are presented here in 9 chapters.
ITMA would like to thank Anton for carrying out this important research on a voluntary basis.
