The launch of a Cork Music Archive in Cork City Library at the weekend has been hailed as an important step towards recording songs and tunes from the city and county going back generations that are in danger of being lost forever.
Musician and music historian Ron Kavana told the launch that the generation who learned their songs from hearing them sung and played rather than from the printed page is dying away and if the music is not recorded live now, it is in danger of being lost to future generations.
Cork city librarian Liam Ronayne said that the library was delighted to be involved in such an archive and pointed out that it spanned a wide range of genres.
"Music is woven virtually into virtually every aspect of the life of Cork city and county - its history, sport, politics and above all its sense of itself . . . Cork has long had a rich and diverse musical culture - traditional, classical, choral, jazz, pop, rock and rap," said Mr Ronayne.
Cork's rich musical history was evident from the broad mix of those attending the launch - traditional singer Seán Ó Se and musician Peadar Ó Riada, Cork School of Music director Dr Geoffrey Spratt and jazz aficionados Pearse Harvey and Ray Fitzgerald.
Also present were classical musicians Gerry Kelly and Evelyn Grant, traditional musician Tomás Ó Canainn, céilí band leader Donal Ring, RTÉ producer and Rory Gallagher biographer Marcus Connaughton and chronicler of The Who and friend to the band, Jack Lyons.
The music archive is the result of a joint effort by Kitty Buckley, executive librarian in the Rory Gallagher Music Library, and Kieran Burke, executive librarian in Local Studies, and collates a wide range of recordings on CD, vinyl and tape and ephemera such as tickets and posters.
Ms Buckley explained that much of the inspiration for the archive came from traditional music archivist Denis McGarry, who began capturing the music and song of Cork county with an old reel-to-reel tape recorder in the 1960s.
"Denis has done tremendous work and he's very kindly offered us copies of his recordings and is currently in the process of transferring them on to CD for us," said Ms Buckley, adding that the archive hopes to carry out its own field recordings in the years to come.
Among the other items donated to the music archive, which has already been assigned space in the planned new city library, are the scrapbooks of the Cork Orchestral Society, while Ray Fitzgerald, former chairman of the Jazz Festival, has also bequeathed his collection to the archive.
The music archive also plans to build up material on the city's celebrated brass and reed bands such as the Butter Exchange and the Barrack Street as well as on the many pipe bands from around the county such as the Cullen Pipe Band and the Thomas Davis Pipe Band.
Among the other items stored in the archive will be recordings of concerts made by piper Micheál Ó Riabhaigh at Cork School of Music in the 1960s while the archive is also expanding its collection of recordings and memorabilia relating to Rory Gallagher.
