History of Celtic Music

Being oral music, Celtic music is in a greater state of fluidity than notation-based music. Versions of songs and tunes proliferate and each musician introduces variations and ornaments as their skill permits and their mood may dictate. Celtic music was largely created and transmitted in performance and carried and preserved in memory, a tradition which is essentially independent of writing and print. The elements of their repertoire perceived as old are held in esteem. This music has been handed down from one generation to the next, or passed from one performer to another, more by example than by formal teaching. Only when Francis O’Neill (1849-1936) chief of Chicago Police collected dance tunes and airs during the last two decades of the 19th century and published his Music of Ireland, in 1903 was some of the traditional music consolidated into what is now the common written repertoire.