The Oxford Handbook of Irish Song from the Earliest Beginnings to 1850

Conor Caldwell is an Associate Professor in Irish Traditional Music at the University of Limerick. He is a traditional fiddle player from Belfast with a strong interest in archival research. His arts-practice focused recordings have explored various eras in Irish history, including the eighteenth century and the jazz era.Moyra Haslett is Professor of Eighteenth-Century and Romantic literature at Queen's University Belfast. She has wide research interests in the literature and culture of eighteenth-century Ireland, including the work of Jonathan Swift and of women writers of the period. Lillis Ó Laoire is Professor emeritus of Irish at the University of Galway. He has published widely on song and literature in Irish.

• Introduction: Conor Caldwell, Moyra Haslett, and Lillis Ó Laoire Early song1. Fergus Kelly, 'Vocal music in medieval Ireland: the textual and linguistic evidence'2. Mícheál B. Ó Mainnín, 'Poetry and Performance in the Gaelic World, c.1200-c.1650'3. Sorcha Nic Lochlainn, '"Out of a reverie, and as if giving unconscious expression to a deep internal feeling": women's clothmaking songs in Gaelic tradition'4. Marie-Louise Coolahan and Wes Hamrick, '"Their lamentable hone": Irish women's funerary song in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries'5. Brian Earls, 'William Carleton, Irish song and the art of keening'6. Lillis Ó Laoire, Méadhbh Nic An Airchinnigh and Sean Williams, '"Excellent in Point of Both Music and Words": The Music of Keening' Varieties of song, 1680-18507. Kerry Houston, 'Sacred vocal music in Ireland: to the Act of Union' 8. Ciarán Ó Gealbháin, 'Aspects of Irish-language song transmission in Munster, 1700-1850'9. Andrew Carpenter, 'Swift and Song'10. Eamonn Ó Bróithe, 'Canfar an Dán: the Songs of the Eighteenth-Century Gaelic Literary Poets'11. Frank Ferguson, 'Ulster-Scots Song'12. John Moulden, '"The Best English-Irish Poetry before Yeats": late eighteenth-century Irish songs in English'13. Scott McKendry, 'Diamonds That on Rocks Do Grow: Revision, Language and Memory in the Ballad "Belfast Mountains" (c.1813-1820)'14. Susan O'Regan, 'Civic and urban performance of song: Cork 1750-1850' Bunting, Cody, Lynch and Moore: Tunes, Texts, Translations 15. Nicholas Carolan, 'The Irish-Language Traditional Song Collection of Patrick Lynch, 1802-1803'16. Colette Moloney, 'Irish Song of the Early Nineteenth Century, as Transcribed by James Cody'17. Máire Uí Bhaoill, 'Varieties of Irish Song collected by James Cody'18. Eilís Lavelle, 'Song Lyrics and Melodies in the Edward Bunting collection'19. Joanne Burns, '"Our Finest and Most Popular Airs are Modern": Thomas Moore on Irish Song'20. Tríona O'Hanlon, 'The Cultural Response to Moore's Irish Melodies in Nineteenth-Century Paris' The Politics of Song21. Estelle Murphy, 'Ceremonial song in eighteenth-century Dublin: Cousser's and Dubourg's Odes and Serenatas'22. Moyra Haslett, 'Anglophone political song in eighteenth-century Ireland: the evidence of print'23. Úna Nic Éinrí and Pádraig Ó Cearbhaill, 'Jacobite Sentiment in Eighteenth-Century Irish Poetry, in Word and in Song'24. Terry Moylan, 'Political Song in the Age of Revolution'25. Una Hunt, 'The Politicization of the Harp through Moore's Irish Melodies'26. Tríona Ní Shíocháin, 'Fearless Song: Máire Bhuí Ní Laeire (1774-c.1848)' Reception and Collecting27. Lesa Ní Mhunghaile, '"Master-pieces of their kind": the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century reception of the songs of Carolan'28. Sinéad Sturgeon, 'Collecting Irish Song, 1797-1855' 29. David Cooper, 'George Petrie (1790-1866) as a collector of Irish song'30. Miriam Uí Dhonnabháin, 'A study of the agallamh tradition: two Munster agallaimh (dialogue songs) collected by James Goodman'31. Gearóid Trimble, '"Fearann Oirghiall Ghlúnmhár Ghrínn": Rediscovering the Oriel Gaelic Song Tradition' Crossings: performance, manuscript, and print32. Virginia Blankenhorn, 'Irish song and the idea of tradition'33. Moyra Haslett, 'Irish traditional songs in print and performance: Laurence Whyte's 1740 selection'34. Ciara Conway, 'Irish Theatrical Song in the Eighteenth Century'35. Helen Burke, 'Robert Owenson's macaronic song repertoire and the Dublin theatre audience of the late eighteenth century'36. Conor Caldwell, 'Exploring Musical Hybridity in the Irish Song Tradition'37. Lillis Ó Laoire and Sean Williams, 'Between Vulgarity and Beauty in the Interstices of Orality and Literacy'38. Julie Henigan, 'Literacy and Orality in Traditional Irish Song: Revisiting a Life's Work'39. Conor Caldwell, '"With Gold in Great Store": Between modes of performance in Irish song'