A New History of Irish (Art) Music

Since W.H.G. Flood's A History of Irish Music (1905!, with a third edition in 1913) no more recent monograph on the general history of music in Ireland has appeared. Since there are already more than enough historical studies on Irish traditional and popular music but none about art music (or 'classical' music), this book of mine will be exclusively about music as an art form, starting in the Middle Ages and ending in 2025.

I've started out in 2022 with the aim of writing a really concise book of about 250 to 280 pages. It seems, though, that publishers do not want such a book, so I am now expanding it into a more comprehensive volume. Chapters 5 (about the period 1810 to 1880) and Chapter 6 (1880 to 1935) are already quite lengthy, and I will yet expand Chapters 3 (1650 to 1760) and 4 (1760 to 1810) by looking closer into some key works of the time. Chapters 1 and 2 about the Middle Ages and the Renaissance can probably stay as they are. Depending on the number of llustrations I am allowed to include, this may become a volume of 400 pages or more. There will also be a Foreword, an Introduction, a Postscript, two appendices (bibliography, discography), and an index (of course).

This has been a long-cherished project of mine for which I originally drafted a table of contents and an editorial layout back in 2011. At the end of July 2025, I completed Chapter 6 and now (in mid-August) I am advancing quickly in Chapter 7 (1935 to 1980). Chapter 8 (1980 to 2025) will be the last of the narrative chapters. Since the beginning of 2025 I reduced my working time in my office job to four days in order to advance faster. It works well.