Over 876 traditional song recordings from the early 1990s have been saved from digital deterioration and made available for free to the public.
Produced by folklorist Michael Fortune, The County Wexford Traditional Singers Archive features 876 tracks recorded by John O'Byrne and Phil Berry from The County Wexford Traditional Singers, over a period covering January 1991 to February 1996.
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In September 2021 John O'Byrne handed a box of cassettes to Michael Fortune, who slowly and carefully digitised and re-mastered the collection into audio files; some of the tapes had deteriorated over the years, but the majority of the recordings remained in good condition.
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In 2022, Fortune and the group secured further funding thanks to The Arts Department of Wexford County Council via their Creative Communities Scheme; these audio files were then transferred into video format, complete with each song chapter marked with details of the singer, the song and when it was recorded.
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John O’Byrne and Phil Berry have been organising traditional singing sessions throughout Wexford for the past 30 years, with O'Byrne recording performances from over 150 different singers.
Now available to the public for the first time, the collection offers a remarkable archive for those interested in traditional song.
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The recordings are now available via the YouTube pages of Wexford Traditional Singers and Michael Fortune (Folklore.ie), where each recording has been catalogued with singer, song and their location, and additionally chapter marked so the listener can easily skip from song to song.
Find out more about the Wexford Traditional Singers here, and about folklorist Michael Fortune here.
