Published Proceedings of the 1996 Crossroads Conference, Crosbhealach an Cheoil

Edited by Fintan Vallely, Hammy Hamilton, Eithne Vallely & Liz Doherty

New Edition, thoroughly re-edited and expanded to include twelve missing papers and photographs.

Revolutions in technologies, commodification and PR marketing have nurtured a new professionalism in traditional music— manifested internationally most dramatically in the 1990s by Riverdance—but this led to an unsettling crisis for the nineteenth-century ideals of ‘tradition’, ‘revival’ and ‘authenticity’. Crosbhealach an Cheoil / the Crossroads conference—the first ever conference within Irish traditional music—was called in in 1996 in response to this challenge. Organised by musicians, it drew on the scene’s new academia, its oral-tradition intelligentsia and its players, and over three days hosted an intense debate. All of that is was recorded by the Irish Traditional Music Archive, and was also published in an interim collection of 30 papers in 1999. Now it is available again, but in a fresh publication which has the full historical record of 44 voices that express attitudes, fears, and ideas prevalent in 1996, and which contributed to shaping Traditional music as it is today.

The book has essays by all contributors, Including fourteen previously-missing texts, plus opening and closing talks, and has photographs of the event’s speakers and many of its participants. Included is the keynote paper by Prof. Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, as well as his seminal analysis of the music of Tommy Potts. All papers have been thoroughly re-edited in a beautifully designed publication. Available from July 1st, 2026, printed in Ireland, and is made possible by the generosity of the speakers, and by grant assistance from the Arts Council and from Gael Linn.