How the Fleadh Cheoil helped revive traditional music in Ireland

A new book shows how the Fleadh played a crucial role in helping to revive traditional music

The Fleadh Cheoil in Swinford in 1961.

“They barred the country house dance, and the priests was erecting parish halls. Then the emigration started. A lot of lads I used to play with went off to England and America, and there was no one but myself… I used to nearly cry. Nowhere to go, no one to meet, no sets in the houses. Nothing left but the hall.”

West Clare fiddle player Junior Crehan’s bleak reflection on the declining social opportunities for Irish traditional music and dance, exacerbated by the 1935 Public Dance Halls Act, sets the scene for the renaissance that followed.