The US Library of Congress American Folklife Center publication “Folklife Center News” Fall '07 issue has a nice ten-page article on some recently-rediscovered wax cylinders recorded by Francis O’Neill and long thought lost. This article includes a full-page sidebar on the uilleann pipes.
http://www.loc.gov/folklife/news/pdf/afcnews-fall-2007.pdf
A previous C&F discussion about these recordings is here.
Although I am really glad that the cylinders of Chief O’Neill have been uncovered I hate to see them fall into the abyss of thousands of other recordings that are in the Library of Congress. There is supposed to be public access to the collection but when it comes to the LOC there is no such thing. The eternal squabbling over copyright, publishing, public access, etc. are so restrictive as to make it so that only the rich can afford the charges to gain access to the recording library.
I remember years back when I was working on my Folklore degree talking Alan Jabbour (then head of the Folklore section of the LOC) and he said that the library is so underfunded that it would take ( at the time) $250 million dollars just to catalog the Folk collection, including recordings.
A better deal would have been to donate them to someone like Joe Bussard, that fantastic old time Recordings collector, who would have made the recordings available to the public for around $1.00 each. The last I heard is that the LOC charges $15.00 each for copies.
All the best,
Pat Sky
The article indicates that the original cylinders (and a set of the digital dubs of them which the LOC generated) have been returned to the Ward Irish Music Archives in Milwaukee. The LOC has digital copies.
There’s also mention of a CD release by the Ward Archive.
I do hope that the Ward collection will release a CD of the recordings. Notice in the article that the LOC says that researchers will be able to hear them in the reading room. Most likely, that means if you want to have copies you will pay through the nose.
On a good note there are already black market copies of the cylinders floating around.
Great find, Jumper. Looks like you’ve joined an anarcho-syndicalist commune, judging from your signature. 
Very rarely does the AFC start up a new online exhibit, unfortunately. The ones they have are really cool though, but must involve an awful lot of work.
The LOC wants something like $15/hour for dubs, base rate. Then other sorts of fees are piled on. You run up a big tab pretty quick. Smaller institutions have put together really nice online exhibits, though; having limited material to work with perhaps helps, or they get tax exemptions or grants for doing such work that makes them more motivated. At any rate, it’d be a simple matter for the Ward Archive to put the stuff up online, or market a CD.
Hope they haven’t been flooded, though! Their site works, that’s a good sign.
Good news,
I just received a reply to a letter that I sent to the Ward archive. It seems that they are in negotiations with Cork University who has agreed to combine their cylinders with Ward’s and produce a 2CD set of all of the known cylinders. They said that hopefully the CD’s will be out within a couple of years.
All the best,
Pat Sky
I just received a similar response this morning saying it would be about a year until the release.
I think it’s cool that they are teaming up with UCC to put all the cylinders together into one collection. I have seen touchless digitizing equipment being used by the Smithsonian for digitally capturing the sound of old cylinders, and the sound quality (after a bit of doctoring) was really amazing. Hopefully, the O’Neill cylinders will receive the same treatment.
djm
Don’t get your hopes up too high, while some are quite good quality wise, not all of them are
Hmmm… would anyone be able to PM me to let me know where these recordings are “floating around”?
Thanks!
A bit of an update from the Ward Irish Music Archives regarding the Dunn Collection and the O’Neill cylinders.
We’re moving ahead this winter and spring on completing both a CD project and a website for the Dunn Family Collection. A lot of people in the traditional music circles know about the cylinder recordings, but not many are aware of the number of manuscripts, images, and artifacts that are also part of the collection. We’ll be making as much as possible available in an online format.
WIMA will be sending out updates through our blog as the projects unfolds: http://blog.irishmusicarchive.com/
No ETA as of now, we’re focusing on doing the job well and making sure the site is user friendly!
–Jeff Ksiazek
Archivist, Ward Irish Music Archives
That’s great news! Thanks for your efforts, looking forward to seeing/hearing this stuff.