Traditional Song Forum

The Traditional Song Forum will be meeting at the Ulster Sports Club, Belfast BT1 2BG on 19 October 2019. The event is FREE OF CHARGE but you will need a ticket to get in.
This will be the occasion of the 2019 Roy Palmer Lecture, which is to be given by Dr John Moulden.
The Worlds of Sam Henry
Sam Henry is known world-wide for the newspaper series ‘Songs of the People’ and the singers and publications that draw on it. However, he was much more than that. He allowed himself to be distracted into the fields of journalism, broadcasting, topography, photography, genealogy, archaeology and others. This talk will explore and delineate these diversions to indicate that these diffuse strands of his activity can be drawn together to build a compelling context for the songs, the singers and life in north Ulster in the first half of the 20th century.
 
Dr John Moulden is a lifelong singer and student, more concerned with the location of songs and singers within their communities than with mere words and music. A former Primary School Principal he is, like Roy Palmer, an advocate of the use of traditional songs in schools; but recent work, led by his doctoral thesis ‘The printed ballad in Ireland’, has been more academic; principally concerned with persuading historians that vernacular songs, properly questioned, are vital components in reaching into the lives of the ordinary people of the past and that literary scholars should appreciate that such songs have qualities not reached by the poetry of the formally educated classes.
John's lecture will form part of an afternoon of presentations about aspects of traditional song in Ireland by other experts in the field including: 
Maurice Leyden – Mills, Millies and Mayday – A new industrial female song tradition.
Dr Conor Caldwell –Between Song and Tune: Liminality in Irish Song Melodies
Fergus Woods– Kind Friends Lend an Ear, a collection of stories and songs from County Monaghan
Roisin White– Tis Pretty to be in Ballinderry’, The life and times of Robert Cinnamond
Jim Carroll and Pat Mackenzie– Child Ballads in Ireland
In the morning we will have the usual networking session where TSF members and visitors share their knowledge and interests in traditional song. Visitors are very welcome to join in this part of the meeting.
The full programme for the day can be found on the Traditional Song Forum website - www.tradsong.org. You will also find details of any changes or updates on the website.