The Song Hunter - Tom Munnelly and the Voice of Ireland

Across four decades, Tom Munnelly travelled across the length and breath of Ireland amassing the country’s greatest collection of English-language songs. According to the singer Christy Moore, if it weren’t for Tom, 20,000 songs - some of them centuries old - would be buried in the ground. He began collecting as a hobby during the 1960s folk revival, which came after decades during which traditional music and song were widely disparaged in Ireland. Tom left school at fifteen and started work in a knitwear factory in Dublin but was soon working full time as a collector. He recorded singers and musicians in pubs, in their houses, at the roadside and also in Traveller camps, just at the moment when technology was for ever changing the way music was shared and remembered.

Irish composer Hannah Peel sets out to find out what drove Tom to spend many years on his search for his ‘harvest of songs’. She visits the National Folklore Collection in Dublin, which houses much of Tom’s collection, as well as speaking with the likes of Lankum’s Ian Lynch, a great admirer of Tom’s work and of the position he established as a leading authority on traditional music. Hannah also travels to County Clare to meet Tom’s widow Annette in the home they moved to beside the Atlantic Ocean.

Contributors:
Ian Lynch (Lankum, One Eye One Leg); Jonny Dillon, Director of National Folklore Collection, UCD; Tom Mulligan (owner, Cobblestone Pub); singer Máire Ní Chrónín; Professor Therese Smith, UCD; Terry Moylan & Nicholas Carolan, editors (with Jerry O’Reilly) of ‘The Song Collector, Writings of Tom Munnelly’ published by Irish Traditional Music Archive; Annette Munnelly.

Singers/Musicians included from Tom Munnelly’s collection, with permission of National Folklore Archive, UCD: Francis Cox, Mary Dolan, Margaret Dunne, Brigid Fitzgerald, Frances Greehan, Patsy Johnston, John Reilly, John Reilly Jr., Brigid Reilly.

Recording of Tom Munnelly singing 'The Mullinger Recruit’ made by Jimmy McBride.

Presented by Hannah Peel
Produced by Geoff Bird
Exec Producer - Jo Meek
A Naked Production for BBC Radio 3