We’re pleased this month to mark the 30th anniversary of Boston College’s first Gaelic Roots Festival, one of nine consecutive festivals of music and dance hosted by fiddle player and faculty member Séamus Connolly.
The popularity of the festivals that ran from 1993 to 2003 provided a foundation for the subsequent Gaelic Roots Series, an offering that continues today. In keeping with the anniversary we have begun selecting archival audio and video clips from the festivals in preparation for posting them online.
The October 1993 weekend festival, launched as “Gaelic Roots: The Music, Song and Dance of Ireland, Cape Breton and Scotland,” brought renowned traditional musicians and dancers from across North America, Ireland, and the British Isles. Following the second Gaelic Roots weekend, which took place in October 1995, Connolly produced a double CD of live performances from the 1993 and 1995 concerts.
In 1997 Connolly and the Irish Studies Program took the festival to a new level, transforming it into an annual, week-long festival and summer school. The full-week format was a resounding success, attracting audience members, performers, presenters, and students of all ages who travelled from near and far to participate.
After the final Gaelic Roots festival in June 2003, BC continued the Gaelic Roots theme by establishing a series of concerts and other music-related events throughout the academic year. Connolly directed the Gaelic Roots Series (also known as the “Gaelic Roots Music, Song, Dance, Workshop, and Lecture Series”) from 2003 to 2015, and in this role brought many esteemed traditional performers and lecturers to campus as part of BC’s Irish Studies Program.
From 2016 onward the Gaelic Roots Series has continued to feature established and emerging artists under the direction of faculty member and fiddle player Sheila Falls Keohane. Although several of the events in 2020 and 2021 were virtual, in-person events resumed in fall 2021. Recent video clips from the series include The Kane Sisters, Sliabh Notes, Brenda Castles & Alan Murray, The Murphy Beds, and Tommy Sands.
In 2022 Burns Library completed a project to digitize hundreds of hours of audio and video tapes from the Gaelic Roots Festivals for access and preservation. The finding aid to the collection, Boston College Gaelic Roots Festival records, is a guide to this unique material. In addition to the sample clips from the collection that will be made available online, access to the full collection is available by visiting Burns Library in person. We are happy to answer questions, and a future blog post will provide tips on how to use the Library’s new discovery tool, Search Burns Archives. We cordially invite you to subscribe to our YouTube channel to be notified of new video clips as they are posted.
Elizabeth Sweeney, Irish Music Librarian, Burns Library
irish music archives @ burns library 