The Evolution of the Sound Archive at the National Folklore Collection

This is the second part in the history of the Sound Archive at the National Folklore Collection. The first part can be found here.

Caoimhín Ó Danachair in the sound recording studio, Irish Folklore Commission

This part of the story begins in 1939 when Séamas Ó Duilearga had a chance meeting with a member of the Thomas Edison Company on a train journey in North America. They discussed the work of the Irish Folklore Commission, and due to the interest the member of staff showed, the Thomas Edison Company decided to provide a gramophone recording machine. It was electric as opposed to the mechanical Ediphone recording device being used by the Commission, but after consulting with UCD’s School of Physics, they were confident they could use batteries with it. However, the machine didn’t arrive at the Commission until 1940, and by that time, World War II was in full swing and spare parts weren’t available to power the machine with batteries so the machine stayed at the Commission HQ. As a result, while the Commission couldn’t take the machine around the country, special informants were brought to the Commission’s offices to record the earliest acetate disc recordings we have, in 1940. This way of collecting continued during the war years as long as acetate discs were available. After the war, the Commission were to be sent to the Isle of Man.

Group at Dalby in the Isle of Man including Chalse Craine, Eric Creegan, Leslie Quirk and Tommy Braide

On July 23, 1947, when Taoiseach Éamonn de Valera made an unofficial visit to the Isle of Man, he spoke with native speakers there and was made aware that the language was dying, and no proper record had been made of the remaining native speakers. De Valera intended to use the services of the Commission to record them before the Manx language completely disappeared. The main problem was that the Ediphone wouldn’t be good enough, or of high enough quality, to achieve this. De Valera decided to allocate funds for the Commission to have a mobile recording unit to accomplish this. The gramophone was finally set up, and a van was bought to transport it. Caoimhín Ó Danachair took the van in 1948 and collected 4 hours of material from the last native speakers, including conversations, stories, prayers, and other snippets. Among them was Miss Madge Watterson from Colby on the Isle of Man. Ó Danachair recorded her singing this lullaby in Manx in 1948.

Edward Maddrell and Charlie Watterson, Cregneash, near Port St Mary

Ó Danachair collected much from the speakers during his time there, but unknowingly, he recorded a man who was to be the last native speaker on the island when he died in 1974. His name was Edward “Ned” Maddrell, and Ó Danachair recorded him saying the Our Father in Manx:

Plaque on the wall of the National Folklore Collection Audio Archive

In 2002, with the revival of Manx well under way, members from the Isle of Man visited the University and presented a plaque to the National Folklore Collection. It still hangs on the wall in the Sound Archive. More on the story of the Commissions travels to the Isle of Man can be found here.

View of open van with young boy heading towards men who are recording.

One could say that what started as a charitable gesture to the people of the Isle of Man indirectly initiated the sound archive as we know it today. The reason for this was the carrier itself. In the 1940s, with acetate discs as the new carrier in use with the gramophone, sound recording preservation began, as the acetate discs couldn’t be erased like the Ediphone recordings. The Commission understood the significant benefits of preserving sound material, as Ó Danachair noted:

“Since orally transmitted material loses much of its character when preserved in the written medium only, it is necessary, for a full record of tradition, to preserve certain examples of the material in sound records; this is especially true of songs, poems, music, and folk tales.”

Recording van, Cluain Eachlainn. Séamus Ennis sitting in van recording

The sound collection grew significantly over these years, and in addition to the 1,300 Ediphone recordings, 1,750 acetate discs are currently being digitized. The first batch of Acetate discs were successfully launched at this year’s Oireachtas in Killarney and are available on dúchas.ie. Another advantage of the acetate discs was that when they travelled around the country collecting material on discs, they went to people who had previously been recorded on paper or the Ediphone. This made collecting the material easier, as Ó Danachair noted:

“In most cases the storytellers and other contributors had already had all or part of their store of tradition recorded in written form, by use of the Ediphone dictating machine. Thus they and their repertoires were already known to the Commission’s field workers, and the making of sound recordings from them was greatly simplified.”

View inside car of disk recording machine

The Commission continued to record on Acetate discs through the 1950’s until the next evolutionary step happened in the Sound Archive. The third and final part of the history of the sound archive will be available early next year.

This post was written by Éamonn Ó hAdhmaill, Oifigeach Sinsearach Teicniúil | Senior Technical Officer, Cnuasach Bhéaloideas Éireann | National Folklore Collection.

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The audio recordings in this blogpost are now available in the Audio Collection section on dúchas.ie