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 is proud to partner with RTÉ Archives on this ongoing project to digitise a collection of thousands of acetate discs originally recorded for RTÉ radio.
The recordings on these disks contain a wealth of traditional music and song, as well as historical interviews documenting the founding of Irish colleges and seminal Irish language publications. Special thanks to Pádraic Mac Mathúna, who’s spent countless hours in the archive cataloguing these discs.
Here are three of the manyhighlights found on these recordings, picked out by Pádraic:
Recorded in 1953, a young Paddy Tunney sings Easter Snow, accompanied by an unidentified artist on piano accordion: https://www.rte.ie/archives/co…
Recorded in 1949, two men sing in Irish. The disc label reads ‘Reacaireacht i gCeol ó Cúl Aodha’. It’s one of a number of recordings possibly made from Cúil Aodha (Coolea): https://www.rte.ie/archives/co…
Recorded in 1940, Treasa NicChormaic plays ‘Where Were You All The Day’ and ‘The Banks of Ahasnach’, on the harp: https://www.rte.ie/archives/co…
In May, Pádraic went on Radió Na Gaeltachta to discuss his work on the collection: https://www.rte.ie/radio/rnag/…
