Cary Karp
The Connemara Fiddle
Francis O’Neill provided detailed biographical information about the contributors to his collections of Irish traditional music, in a book titled Irish Minstrels and Musicians, published in 1913. The fiddler Edward Cronin was one of the more prolific of them. He was a native of County Tipperary, born about 1838, who emigrated to Troy, New York, before settling in Chicago. With reference to Cronin’s residence there, O’Neill observed that: Visits to his home were fraught with pleasure, especially when he played in concert with two young friends from Troy – Patrick Clancy on the flute and Thomas F. Kiley on the…
Continue readingBanjolins, taterbugs, and bouzoukis
The preceding post examined early audible evidence of the mandolin in the performance of Irish traditional music (ITM). The first attested association is on two wax cylinders recorded ca. 1905. Each begins with an announcement of the tune on it being “played on the violin, mandolin, and fife, by Messrs. Cronin, Kiley, and O’Neill.” The post then considered the richer subsequent evidence of the banjo mandolin in the same musical environment, and concluded that to have been the type of mandolin Thomas Kiley played on the recordings. The present text continues with an identical situation just over a half century later.…
Continue readingThe 4-string banjolin
This is the final installment in a discussion about the banjo mandolin (aka mandolin banjo depending on the musical context). It is anchored in two independent US patents, from 1882 and 1885. The latter was issued to John Farris, who named his variant a banjolin. Both patents are detailed in the first part of this series along with the instrument’s initial commercial manifestations. It entered into the realm of Irish traditional dance music early on, and the second part examines how its use there ultimately abated. The present text deals with a 4-string form of the instrument, briefly noted previously,…
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