Resources for the Irish Trad Musician
Find a private instructor, find an Irish music school, find sheet music to the tunes, learn the history of the songs.

Irish Music Instruction

CCÉ Boston Music School
    Brighton, MA - Spring and Fall semesters
Lessons in banjo, bodhrán, bouzouki, accordion, concertina, flute, guitar, harp, mandolin, sean-nós singing, tin whistle, and uilleann pipes

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Blackstone River Theatre
    Cumberland, RI - classes in
    banjo, mountain dulcimer, bodhrán, and fiddle

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Passim School of Music
    Cambridge, MA - check website for
current offerings

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Irish Cultural Centre
Canton, MA  -  tin whistle and fiddle for children

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Chatham Fiddle Company
Chatham, MA  -  fiddle, mandolin and tenor banjo

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Online Academy of Irish Music
West Clare, Ireland  -  all courses taught online

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Private lessons

Mick Conneely
by Skype  -  fiddle & bouzouki

Ellery Klein
Medford MA  -  fiddle

Adam Sweet
South Hadley MA  - fiddle, guitar & mandolin

Mance Grady
    Cumberland RI  -  bodhrán         

Skip Healy
Warwick RI  -  flute and whistle

Laurel Martin
Littleton MA  -  fiddle

Bronwyn Keith-Hynes
Boston, or by Skype  -  fiddle

Laura Smith
Jamaica Plain MA  -  fiddle

Kevin Burke
by Skype  -  fiddle

Florence Fahy
Boston MA, or by Skype  -  concertina

Will Woodson
Portland ME, Boston MA, or by Skype
border pipes, smallpipes, wooden flute, and tin whistle

Christian Stevens
Freeport ME, Boston MA or by Skype
Anglo Concertina, Button Accordion & Melodeon

Stephen Brown
Winchendon, MA
bones & bodhrán

Irish Music Sites

The Session.org
  If you don't know,
you probably don't need to know.

 Traditional Tune Archive
(formerly The Fiddler's Companion)
searchable database for tune origins, history and anecdotal information

Mudcat:
    Forums Board for folk music discussion.
Great resource for song lyrics and meanings.

TradConnect:
    Social network for Trad musicians worldwide.
  
Irish Music Magazine
    Tour and Festival listings, new CD releases.

Cape Irish
    Bill Black's comprehensive site about all Irish Trad stuff on Cape Cod.

Boghat
Traditional Irish Music around Portland ME

ITMA
Irish Traditional Music Archives, located in Dublin.  Reference centre for traditional song and music.
Music clips and sheet music.

sites by Instrument

Accordions &Concertinas

Concertina.net
Forums Board for Concertina players

The Button Box
retail shop dealing in new and used concertinas
and accordions.  Maker of R. Morse Concertinas
Sunderland, MA

bodhrán

Ace Bodhráns
made by Mance Grady

Seamus O'Kane
maker

DrumDojo
"by Drummers, for Drummers"

Bones

Rhythm Bones Central
a lot of  bodhrán players play these as well

Fiddle

Fiddle Hangout
Forums Board for Fiddlers

Flute, Whistle & Pipes

Chiff and Fipple
Forums Board for Flute, Whistle and Pipe players

The Irish Flute Store
located in CO - online sales, new and used

Uilleann pipes

Na Píobairí Uilleann
Home of the The Society of Uilleann Pipers

Irish Tunes/
Sheet Music

ABC Converter
(thanks to Leslie for this one)
1. Copy any ABC notation, including the
X: T: K: stuff from the Session.org
2. Paste into the box (2 tunes can be put in at a time to create a tune set)
3.Press Submit and chose pdf

The Groton Session
     Sheet music AND really great mP3 of the tunes played at a good learning tempo by top notch performers such as Seamus Connolly, Laurel Martin, Shannon Heaton, Tony DeMarco, Jimmy Noonan and Osin MacAuley.

The Virtual Session
    Super cool site by BBC Radio 2. Not a huge repertoire, but tunes are arranged in tune sets, and played at a good tempo for you to practice playing along with.  Print the sheet music if that's how you learn.

Montreal Session Tune Book
     Literally THOUSANDS of tunes, in an easy to navigate format.  Sheet music and ABC notation.  Someone spent a lot of time on this.  Midi too, though they are the generic computer generated ones.

Foinn Seisiún Books (Books 1, 2 and 3) PDF
     Downloadable and printable.
Table of Contents (Book  1)  -  page 4
Table of Contents (Book 2)  -  page 45
Table of Contents (Book 3)  -  page 89

O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland
(O'Neill's 1001)
Print any tune in the book.
Midi available as well.

Session Tune
Set Lists

Tune Sets people play
How people put the tunes into sets

Lower Valley Irish Slow Session
Holyoke, MA

Irish Cultural Centre (Friday night)
Canton, MA

Walton's New School of Music
(slow session) Dublin, Ireland
(main site)

Nova Irish Session
Fairfax, VA

Miscellaneous

Transcribe!
App to slow down music files without changing the pitch.  Great for practice if you learn by ear.  Trial month before you buy.

Irish Cultural Center of
Western New England
New (2015) Cultural Center based in
West Springfield MA

Sliabh Luachra Music Trail
Celebrating the very specific and idiomatic traditional music style from Sliabh Luachra
Interactive map