Research

Conference Papers and Special Event Lectures

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Recognising that knowledge transfer and exchange is one of the cutting-edge issues around academic research, over the past half dozen years, John has endeavoured to present research not just at academic conferences and symposia but also at musical and cultural events.  Since much of his current work focuses on intangible performed cultural heritage, this approach seems all the more valid. Lecturing in venues such as EPIC Ireland and at festivals such as the Willie Clancy Week has clearly extended the scope of his impact and has, for example, allowed him reach both amateur and professional performers and carriers of the Irish song tradition. A list of his conference and event appearances over the last number of years includes:

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‘In Search of “British Regional Identity”: The BBC in Ulster in 1952 and 1953’, Connacht Ulster Alliance Research Symposium, Sligo, 2020. 

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‘“Sing Us Another Story”: The transmission of a family song repertoire across six generations’, Willie Clancy Week, Milltown Malbay, Co. Clare, 2019.

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‘Murder, Poteen and the Fairies: Stories, songs and folklore in an ancient landscape’, Galway Heritage Conference, Galway, 2019.

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‘“The most intensive coverage two collectors ever accomplished’: Seán O’Boyle and Peter Kennedy in Ulster, 1952 & 1953’, An Droichead Symposium, Metropolitan Arts Centre, Belfast, 2019. 

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‘A Blackbird Behind Bars: An analysis of Paddy Tunney’s fictionalising of his years in the Crumlin Road Gaol’, 5thInternational Irish Narrative Inquiry Conference, TCD, Dublin 2019.

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‘“It was the air we fell for”: an autoethnographic exploration of the transmission of The Mountain Streams Where the Moorcocks Crow in the Tunney-Gallagher-Travers family over the last two hundred years’, Traditional Tunes and Airs Conference, Vaughan Williams Library, London, 2017.

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‘Songs of Home: The emigrant’s lament’, EPIC Ireland, Dublin, 2016.

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‘“We’ll sing you a song, a soldier’s song”: songs of 1916 and the War of Independence’, 1916 Centenary Lecture Series, GMIT, Galway, 2016.

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 ‘“Rise up dear old Ireland”: Rebel songs in the repertoire of an Ulster border community, from the Great Famine to the 1950s’, 46th Kommission für Volksdichtung/International Ballad Commission Annual Conference, UL, Limerick, 2016.

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‘Reeling in the song lines: chasing down the story of myself’, 3rd International Irish Narrative Inquiry Conference NUIG, Galway, 2016.

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‘The Man of Songs: A remarkable collector of remarkable songs’, Heritage Week, Donegal County Museum, Letterkenny, 2015.

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‘'Folksong or Fakesong? Printed revivalist compositions in the traditional song repertoire of an early 20th-century South Donegal Community’, Research Showcase, GMIT, Galway, 2015.

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‘At Home in a world of song: Growing up in a singing family’ [co-presenter Brigid Tunney], Belfast Song Seminar, Belfast, 2015.

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‘Pedagogy in the teaching and handing on of songs in the Irish tradition’, International Traditional Song Symposium, Irish World Music Centre, UL, Limerick, 2015.

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‘From Hearth to Heritage: The Histories, Genealogies and Transmission of a Local Traditional Song Repertoire in an Irish Border Community’, Post-Graduate Colloquium, GMIT, Galway, 2014.

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‘Green Cottage, the Grove and beyond: Living in a world of song’, [co-presenter Brigid Tunney], Frank Harte Festival, Dublin, 2014.

 

Paper Publications

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‘“It was the air we fell for”: The Transmission of “The Mountain Streams Where the Moorcocks Crow” in the Tunney-Gallagher-Travers Family’, Folk Music Journal, Vol. 11, Issue 5, 2020.

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‘Pipe the Drains with Them’, Treoir: The Journal of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, Winter, 2013.

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‘Keeping the Story Out Front: Interpretative Planning and Exhibition Design’, New Heritage, Vol. 1, London 2000.

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‘The Marquis, the Minister, the Grandmaster and the Captain’, Donegal: History and Society, Geography Publications, 1995.

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‘The Famine and the Irish Mind’, Irish Family History, Vol. 10, 1994.

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‘The Book of Durrow’, A History of the Parish of Durrow, Dublin 1994.

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‘Technology and the Ancestor Trail’, Inside Ireland, no. 60, 1993.

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‘Jobs in Genealogy’, in Irish Roots, No. 1, 1992.

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‘The IGP: A Tourist Agenda for Genealogy’, Irish Family History, Vol. 6, 1990.

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Colmcille and the Columban Heritage, Donegal, 1987. 

 

PhD Dissertation: 

From Hearth to Heritage: The Histories, Genealogies and Transmissions of a Local Traditional Song Repertoire in an Irish Border Community, c. 1800-1955