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Notes on the Beginnings of Concertina Playing in Ireland, 1834–1930

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  • Notes on the Beginnings of Concertina Playing in Ireland, 1834–1930

    I just found a wonderfully thorough article on the history of the concertina in Ireland and amongst the diaspora (including the United States).

    Notes on the Beginnings of Concertina Playing in Ireland, 1834–1930
    Dan Worrall
    The concertina is a much-favored instrument in County Clare, Ireland, and a few players there bridge the gap in time between the instrument’s heyday in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century and the current revival, which began in the 1970s. Although the Irish are known for their long folk memory, the story of how of concertina playing began there has been largely lost; it is often tagged to a threadbare tale of mariners bringing them up the Shannon estuary to Clare. This paper reconstructs its history by using period accounts from newspapers, books and family histories to document the social gatherings where it was played, and the vendors who sold it. The Anglo-German concertina was enormously popular all across Ireland during its heyday, amongst people of all social and economic groups. Its later concentration in Clare was not a result of how it arrived, but of local cultural and economic factors that aided its barest survival there while it was completely dropped-–and all but forgotten--elsewhere in the country.
    Ashley Middleton

  • #2
    Re: Notes on the Beginnings of Concertina Playing in Ireland, 1834–1930

    Wow, thanks for that link, Ashley, very interesting reading.
    [FONT="Book Antiqua"]Carl Anderton[/FONT]

    [FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"][SIZE="2"]"A very good idea of the old style of playing may be formed by referring to the [I]Briggs Banjo Instructor."[/I][/SIZE][/FONT]
    [FONT="Palatino Linotype"][B]Albert Baur, Sgt., Co. A, 102nd Regiment, NY Volunteer Infantry.[/B][/FONT]

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    • #3
      Re: Notes on the Beginnings of Concertina Playing in Ireland, 1834–1930

      Thats a whole lot of squeezebox info. Very interesting.
      Your Obedient,

      Matthew B. Bursig
      52nd New York Regt. "German Rangers",
      & The Daybreak B'hoys Mess

      Researching the Life and Times of the 20th NYSV Regt. The "United Turner Rifles"

      "Bahn Frei!!"

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      • #4
        Re: Notes on the Beginnings of Concertina Playing in Ireland, 1834–1930

        I guess my concertina-playing pard, heritage German, and my banjo-playing self, heritage Irish, come by this thing naturally...

        Dan Wykes
        Danny Wykes

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