Archiving Irish America

From Thursday 11th to Saturday 13th April 2024, a conference was brought together at the Ward Irish Music Archives in Wisconsin. The theme of the weekend event was “Archiving Irish America: Music, Dance, and Culture”.

For this meeting, I presented a version of the research that I had conducted on a survey of practitioners of Irish traditional music across North America. The survey sought to understand the musical landscape more broadly, and the thoughts and interactions of practitioners with archival audio. The conference brought together a fascinating set of individuals, culminating in a weekend of engagement on Irish American culture. More on the Ward Irish Music Archives website.

A description of this meeting:

“In Irish America, archives have been essential in allowing recent generations to tap into the long history of music, language, oral traditions, dance and folklore essential to a vibrant and living culture. Archiving Irish America: Music, Dance & Culture will bring together those who engage with archival materials in their research or creative practice, those who have collected and curated cultural treasures for these archives, and those who wish to contribute to documenting and creating Irish American culture through these important institutions.”

As circumstances dictated, I was unable to attend the event in person. However, I was able to record and deliver an mp4 of the work, and a full length presentation of my paper for this conference is now available here: