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by Fintan Vallely (Editor)
This extraordinary encyclopedia covers all aspects of traditional music song and dance in Ireland. Six-hundred thousand words in fourteen-hundred main topics explore people, tunes, aesthetics, ideology, gender balance, history, organisations and affiliations, linking all dance and recreational music forms to biographies of stylists and figureheads, to regional music associations and practices. Extensive specialist articles give the widest range of one-stop information to date on all aspects of the subjects of dance and song, and on instruments--especially harp, uilleann pipes, fiddle, flute, bodhran, concertina, banjo and accordions. This immense volume of biography, history, hard facts and opinion is diverse and comprehensive, a knowledge base that has been drawn from the expertises of some two hundred musicians, researchers and teachers in the field. Now in its third edition, the Companion also uniquely includes county by county, regional and gender analysis of all 70 years of All-Ireland fleadh prizewinners in dance music and song competitions. Other major awards are reported, as are the role of media, and the practice of the music not only in each county on the island of Ireland, but also in the major diaspora cities, and other countries where the music is also played. The book is a vital, grounded resource in an era where superficial and artificial-intelligence internet data can be false and misleading. It lays out the canon of the traditional music of Ireland, an essential asset and a core reference for all sociological and musicological research and analysis in Irish music and Irish studies. A companion website for the book is available at https: //comitm.com
