This booklet of texts of songs in Irish recorded by the Dublin-based baritone Denis Cox (Donnchadh Mac Coiligh) was published in 1933, presumably for the general educational market, by the Parlophone Company of London, the recording company which since 1928 had been issuing his many 78s of songs in Irish and English.

This booklet of texts of songs in Irish recorded by the Dublin-based baritone Denis Cox (Donnchadh Mac Coiligh) was published in 1933, presumably for the general educational market, by the Parlophone Company of London, the recording company which since 1928 had been issuing his many 78s of songs in Irish and English.

The 25 songs in the collection are mostly 18th- and 19th-century traditional songs, of the kind that had been popularised by the Gaelic League in their concerts since the 1890s. Originally noted from oral tradition, many of the songs had been published in the periodicals and songbooks of the League, and, after the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922, by commercial publishers. The published songs were frequently arranged for voice and piano, or for small vocal groups, by such arrangers represented here as Carl Hardebeck, Vincent O’Brien, and Hubert Rooney (who was Cox’s vocal teacher).

Traditional love songs, political songs, comic songs, praise songs, and religious songs are included in the booklet with some recently composed pieces. Remarkably, the song texts are published without English translations; one, ‘An Fhuiseog’, is a translation from English.

See also Denis Cox, Songs in Irish on 78s below.

With thanks to donor Cáit Ní Chonchubhair.

ITMA would welcome the donation of other materials of this kind which are not yet in its collections (check our catalogues here), or of their loan for copying.

Nicholas Carolan & Maeve Gebruers, 1 August 2009