Joyce and the Collection of Traditional Music, Song, and Dance

Traditional music was an enduring passion for P. W. Joyce throughout his life. The fact that he encountered it in his immediate family, that he acquired melodies from his neighbours in Glenosheen, and that he was an active witness to how it functioned culturally and socially during the 1830s and 1840s, uniquely positioned him to offer readers an authentic insider’s perspective on traditional music, song and dance. Thus, what he collected made a significant contribution to preserving and publishing Irish traditional music and song. In this chapter, an overview of his work in those fields will now be given.