The bodhrán story at a glance

Preface;  Summary of discussion;  Glossary

Chapter 1 The Bodhrán in Traditional Music

The rise of the bodhrán as we know it;  What it is;  Scarcity of resources;  Assumptions;  The experience of drums;  Suspicion of the drum-kit;  Insecurity and challenge

Chapter 2 The Urge to Drum

Material evidence;  No drum visible in ancient Ireland;  Female-centred religion, deities and priests;  Drums and war;  The military tambourine;  Military tambourines in Ireland;  Tambourines and the gentry

Chapter 3 The Irish Timpan: Strings or drum?

Enter Cambrensis, AD 1188 ;  The Fair of Carman, ended c. AD 718 ;  The Irish tympanists, AD 721 ;  ‘The Four Masters’, period AD 1328–1616;  The Zoilomastix, AD 1625;  Charles O’Conor AD 1710–91;  Joseph Cooper Walker, 1786;  Bunting 1809: Skin versus strings;  Eugene O’Curry (1794–1862): the ‘timpan’ was not a drum;  W.K. Sullivan;  English-language translations;  Enter the real drum;  ‘Cambrensis-ism’ in dictionaries?

Chapter 4 The Word ‘Bodhrán’ in Documents

‘The Paris manuscript’, c. AD 900;  Rosa Anglica, c. 1550;  Sifting out the words;  The historic dictionaries;  The Poole Glossary;  Irisleabhar na Gaedhilge;  Dinneen’s dictionary;  The Scottish dictionaries;  The modern dictionaries;  The Royal Irish Academy dictionary;  The bodhrán ‘in a bodhrán’;  A distinct, purpose-defining original meaning for ‘bodhrán’?;  Spelling, pronunciation and meaning;  Audio evidence;  Wild card meanings;  Linguistic speculation

Chapter 5 ‘Bodhrán’: sound or function?

Deafness, noise and dull sound;  The actual, original bodhráns;  Winnowing;  Multi-task bodhráns;  Sieves;  The container bodhrán;  The Halls’ ‘borrane’, c. 1840;  Bodhrán as a music instrument?;  Museum bodhráns;  The National Museum collection;  The Ulster Folk Museum collection;  Sieve-making;  Bodhráns in photographs

Chapter 6 The Tambourine on the Irish Stage

Teaching and learning;  Tutor books;  Availability and role models;  The ‘minstrels’, 1844 – c. 1905;  Authenticity or exoticism?;  Interest in minstrel music;  Impersonating the impersonators;  Attitudes to slavery;  Familiarity;  Influence on music instruments in Ireland?;  Audiences for popular entertainments

Chapter 7 Tambourines among the People

Reports from abroad;  Agitational tambourine;  Religion and solemnity;  Tambourine as collection trayDecoration and novelty;  Prejudices;  Countrywide availability?;  Tambourine and the law;  The tambourine in folklore;  Rattle or thump?;  Tambourine sizes;  Copying the tambourine

Chapter 8 Seeing Is Believing: Presence and Absence

The first tambourine, 1832?;  Interpretation of Snap Apple Night;  A Shebeen in Listowel, c. 1842;  The Vinegar Hill tambourine, 1798 or 1854?;  Tambourines in European art;  Tambourines in Irish photographs;  Absence – or out of sight?;  Music at ancient fairs;  Donnybrook Fair 1200s–18552;  The Sports of Easter Monday, Belfast, 1818;  Antaine Raiftearaí (1779–1835);  The Halls, c. 1840;  William Carleton, 1843;  J.G. Kohl, 1843;  ‘Aonach Bhearna na Gaoithe’ / The Fair of Windgap, c. 1876;  Francis O’Neill, 1903–2

Chapter 9 Improvising Tambourine on a Bodhrán?

The Ballinskelligs battery;  Tomás a’ Bhodhráin;  Drumming on the wecht;  Foot percussion;  From bodhrán to actual tambourine;  The Wren;  From noise to music;  Wren catching

Chapter 10 The Literary Drum

Twentieth-century tambourine;  Rosa Mulholland;  Enter Bryan MacMahon;  John B. Keane;  Sive, the Munster finale;  Seán Ó Riada, 1960: From tambourine to bodhrán;  Michael Hartnett;  The Bodhrán Makers, 1986;  Gabriel Fitzmaurice, 2006

Chapter 11 From Walking to Sitting: Tambourine to Bowran

Tambourines on the sidelines;  Transformation of the Wren;  Beating out fervour ;  Seán Ó Riada and the bodhrán in the press;  The tambourine competition, 1962;  The silence of the tambourines;  The Sive tambourine legacy;  Travellers and the ‘bowran’;  Tambourine outside of Munster;  The ‘bowran’ eclipse;  The parallel bodhrán soundscape;  Role of the press;  Bodhrán women;  ‘The Bodhránry of west Limerick’;  The persistence of ‘bowran’

Chapter 12 Below the Melodicist’s Horizon?

Fife and drum bands;  Bodhrán territories;  Visibility of tambourines;  Connacht;  Galway;  Clare;  Tambourine among the 1950s London Irish;  Midlands;  Dublin county;  Social class and style

Chapter 13 The Actual Bodhrán Makers

Poverty and making do;  Making tambourine copies;  Home-making of instruments;  Recycling the riddle;  Specialisation4;  Desperate measures;  The jinglesThe ‘stick’, cipín or ‘tipper’;  First mention of ‘stick’ in the press;  Bodhrán makers and the media;  Part-time specialists;  Testing the theories;  Charlie Byrne;  Seamus O’Kane;  Malachy Kearns;  Páiric McNeela

Chapter 14 Twentieth-century Bodhrán

Bodhrán soloists;  Stylistic change;  Media and myth;  State representation of bodhrán popularity and status;  Competitions;  The bodhrán in the All-Ireland Fleadh;  Geographic expansion;  Ulster;  Munster;  Leinster;  Connacht

Chapter 15 Bodhrán Theories and Opinions

Chapter 16 Re-thinking the Bodhrán?

The gap – no outside influence?;  No ‘minstrel boys’ on the drum?;  The ‘pagan’ bodhrán thesis;  Romantic rhetoric?;  Closing the file;  Waving the flag;  From marching Wren to sit-down music

Chapter 17 A Bodhrán Portrait Gallery

Appendices

Appendix 1. The Eugene O’Curry lectures notes on the timpan

Appendix 2. Music-professionalism references in manuscripts

Appendix 3. Verses written by Newcastle West poet Michael Hartnett

Appendix 4. Contemporary Developments

Appendix 5. Caoimhín Ó Danachair / Kevin Danaher, biography

Appendix 6. Video, film and online links

Appendix 7. Folklore: The Schools’ Collection

Appendix 8. Gerald Griffin: extract from The Collegians, 1829

Appendix 9. The Kerryman, 1944

Appendix 10. The ’78’ recording disc

Appendix 11. Extract: Our Musical Heritage, Radio Éireann, 1962

Appendix 12. ‘…Our native drum, the bodhrán …’

Appendix 13. Comparison of various players’ striking styles

Appendix 14. Singing about and slagging off the bodhrán

Bibliography, Acknowledgements, Index