A new book Beating Time: The Story of the Irish Bodhrán by Fintan Vallely traces the development of the ubiquitous percussion instrument
IN THE 1997 film Titanic, the Irish steerage passengers are shown having a seisún, with a bodhrán player going full pelt. This was supposed to depict a scene from 1913 society — and of course was way off beam. The bodhrán was almost entirely absent in the Irish tradition until the mid-20th century.
Ireland’s gift to the world of percussion in relatively recent decades is best seen alongside the development of Irish music.
Ensemble playing in Irish music, that is, musicians playing in groups, is almost entirely a modern phenomenon. Until well into the 20th century Irish music was a solo tradition, and an almost entirely melodic one — with no accompaniment either harmonic or percussive.
This can easily be proved by looking at the notation of any Irish melody – the sheer richness of the ornamentation means that it hadn’t been ‘straightened out’ by the presence of other instruments, or by the accompaniment of percussion or harmony. It existed in glorious solo form.
The first real ensemble playing began with the céilí bands of the 1920s, formed for dancing.
It is now generally accepted that the very first time musicians sat down in an informal session to play to each other purely for the sake of the music was in London in the mid 20th century.
There may have been small gatherings of musicians before that, but largely speaking the ‘seisiún’ came into being in London from the mid-20th century
These pub gatherings were partly due to the rise of the showbands. Whatever about the musical merits of the céilí band, they at least were a link with home because they played familiars airs and dances. With the coming of the showband and their mix of country and pop, anyone from rural Ireland could feel distinctly alienated. The traditional session pubs provided the emigrant with a link home.
By the 1960s, Irish musicians playing together had become increasingly widespread, but Seán Ó Riada was the first to put the new idea on stage and present Irish music as a concert form. And in doing so, he almost single-handedly introduced the bodhrán into Irish music.
The tambourine has been sporadically used in cultural or musical events, and a side drum resembling a bodhrán is used in the hunting the wren tradition, largely confined now to the south west of Ireland. But neither made their way into the mainstream of Irish music.
Ó Riada changed that with his band Ceoltóirí Chualann (the forerunner of the Chieftains), and his music to the film Misé Éire. The bodhrán was on its way, soon making its way into seisúns and bands, and soon to become an integral part of Irish music.
Beating Time — the book
Beating Time traces the unexpectedly modern history of the bodhrán in Irish music. Although the word “bodhrán” has long existed in Irish, historically describing a shallow wooden container or agricultural tool, its role as a musical instrument only began to crystallise in the mid-20th century.
According to Vallely the turning point came in 1959 with John B. Keane’s use of a tambourine in his landmark play Sive, followed soon after by the influence of Seán Ó Riada’s pioneering traditional ensemble Ceoltóirí Chualann. The drum’s visual and rhythmic impact took hold, aided by high-profile groups like the Chieftains, Planxty, the Bothy Band and De Dannan, and by the promotional work of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann. By the end of the century, tens of thousands of bodhráns had found their way into sessions across Ireland and beyond.
Beating Time also explores less-discussed origins, including the influence of British military music and American minstrel troupes, and suggests the bodhrán may be a rebranded relative of the tambourine. Rather than viewing it as Ireland’s oldest instrument, the book makes a bold case for seeing the bodhrán as its newest — and one of its fastest-growing musical exports. In terms of global uptake and symbolic power, its rapid ascent is compared to that of the guitar.
Fintan Vallely
Fintan Vallely is an Irish musician, writer and academic renowned for his work in the field of traditional Irish music. A flute player from Armagh, he has performed widely and contributed extensively to the study and promotion of Irish folk traditions. Vallely is much respected as the editor of The Companion to Irish Traditional Music.
Alongside his performance career, Vallely has lectured on Irish music and ethnomusicology at several institutions including University College Dublin and Dundalk Institute of Technology..
Fintan Vallely’s Beating Time: The Story of the Irish Bodhrán is published by Cork University Press
