Talk:Music of Ireland

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This article is part of the "World music" set of articles nominated for Version 0.7. Discuss this nomination, or see the set nominations page for more details.
Music of Ireland was a good article, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Delisted version: December 16, 2006


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[edit] Article undreadable

I've just read this article for the first time and it's unreadable. Somebody has filled it up with (source needed) and (original research) tags to such an extent as to make it absolutely unreadable. I mean seriously, does the claim that U2 is the biggest band out of Ireland really need a source? Let's use a bit of common sense here. It seems that every single adjective has to be justified by a source, which is nigh on impossible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.210.35.24 (talk) 21:18, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Good article Review] this article being reviewed for delisting from Good Article status

SEE Good article Review] this article being reviewed for delisting from Good Article status. --Ling.Nut 01:15, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

What is the "Music of the United Kingdom" thing for. This is supposed to be an article about the music of the island of Ireland, Republic and UK, it would be nice if people could leave politics out of it. There's no need for it really. 212.64.98.189 00:35, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

There has been a lot of vandalism to this page lately, and I think this page should be at least semi-protected.Andrewrhchen 13:28, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What does this mean?

In addition to folk music, Ireland also has a rich store of contemporary classical music. However contemporary classical music has no impact, and very little exposure in Ireland itself, and therefore abroad. The two sentences are contradictory, although I'm not completely certain what the second sentence is even saying. I have a hard time imagining that there is no impact.--RLent 21:40, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ulster Scots music

How come not a single bit of this is mentioned?

The bouzouki and mandolin both get a lengthy sections, yet nothing on the lambeg drum or marching (accordion/flute/bagpipe) bands? Tuaisceart Éireann 19:18, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] De-listing this Article appears to be an extreme response

This article is filled with information, information for which references may be difficult to provide in many cases, requiring much time in addition to that involved in its writing. Much of the information is a reasonable first approximation that I would hope would be refined and bolstered with references over time. I will discuss this issue with someone I know who has strong backgrounds in both Irish music and research with the goal of influencing her to assist in editing this page. In response to criticisms made, the politicization of the topic may be due to sensitization of the first critic after years of abuse, being less obvious to me. I would argue that contemporary classical music in Ireland may be both rich and without broader impact since it may be inadequately published or publicized, although a number of examples of well-known musicians come to mind. Finally, the concern over lack of discussion of lambeg drum and marching bands may be entirely valid. All of these would be matters appropriate for editing by the respective critics. I have minor concerns about the outlining of the music section compared to the dance music section that follows. None of this justifies the de-listing one of the best general discussion of Irish music that I was able to find during my initial search of the Internet. Mark Henigan 03:40, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article needs large changes to raise quality, needs to be split

Music of Ireland definitely needs large rewriting and a reorganisation. I don’t think there is much intentional bias… just sloppiness. That leaves "Music of Ireland" far below the quality of some other countries. Over the past year, there have been requests for changes. Little seems to have been done. Time for that to change!

The article is contradictory in places, and sometimes inaccurate. Judgemental, and even then the ideas could have been better expressed. Indeed some of the talk serves no purpose at all, whatever one’s bias. The evidence offered for the claims is fairly non existent.

A separate article is needed on traditional music. “Music of Ireland” should then be an overview of all aspects of Music of Ireland.

      • Does anyone object before I – and anyone else who care to join – embark on such changes? ***

The article in the traditional section rabbits on about changes to the tradition (dubious speculation). However it has little to say on "Irish traditional music are quite distinct to the rhythmic and melodic structures that govern other musical forms". Surely that is vital.

Cckkab 13:40, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

There is already an article called "Traditional Music". Perhaps you intended to say that there should be an acticle called "Folk music of Ireland". There is already an article called "Folk music of England", so this proposition is fully justified.

I am inclined to the position that Celtic traditional instrumental music is distinct from the traditional instrumental music of non-Celtic nations. Within seconds you can distinguish it from Hungarian or Spanish melodies. To claim that Irish tunes are vastly different from Scottish tunes is nonsense. "The Chieftains" and "Boys of the Lough" frequency cross the whole spectrum of Celtic music. There is a huge grey area there.

Far too many of the so-called "great" fiddlers don't have an article. I have written a couple of the ones that do exist. You have to wonder - if they are so great, how come they don't have an article? For an article that is supposed to represent an overview of a subject, there should be some kind of over-riding rule regarding how many gaps are permissible. I have counted

  • 23 genuine blue links for Irish fiddlers
  • 30 (empty) red links
  • 3 fake links ("Tom Barrett", "Gerry Harrington" and "Tim Browne" lead to nowhere sensible)
  • 1 link to a non-wikipedia site (Brendan Mullvihill)

Surely the ratio of genuine links to empty links should be 2:1 or better. This means brutal thinning out of so-called important fiddlers. I am prepared to do this, but I fear some kind of backlash from interested parties. Ogg (talk) 20:05, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I have googled every one of the fiddlers and removed the 15 who have got the fewest citations on the web. This kind of article shouldn't be a laundry-list. Ogg (talk) 20:13, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

The most bloated parts of this article are

  • "Accordion and concertina"
  • "Traditional Music"

These should be created as separate articles, or perhaps removed into one big article called "Folk Music of Ireland". What remains behind should be mercilessly compressed to remove the descriptions and concentrate on the prominent archievers and most notable movements.

Similarly "Classical Music in Ireland" should be created as a separate article, and the current text rewritten as a summary for use within "Music of Ireland".

This would leave us with a bloated "Folk Music of Ireland" article, but at least there would a serious chance of bringing "Music of Ireland" back into a more compressed, less flabby form. I'm shapening my knives. Are there any more butchers out there ready for action? Ogg (talk) 02:04, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, I have made the split. Almost all of the folk music material has been transferred to the new article "Folk music of Ireland". I have made a few changes. Feel free to undo what I did, or make massive changes. Ogg (talk) 10:16, 12 January 2008 (UTC)


      • The improvements are good.. but don't go far enough. Also there is much more info available... take a look here

http://phonoarchive.org/grove/Entries/S13901.htm suggesting a complete reorganisation. We could also take a leaf out of Music history of Portugal ... page is better structured For one, we need to transfer some of the Folk (eg Table with top rock groups in the Folk article e.g. into some other article... maybe here). cckkab (talk) 08:02, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Awful article

I'm not really interested in working on any article pertaining to world music since I already have my hands full working in the area of heavy metal music. I was just checking what article links to the Celtic metal page that I only recently just recreated. This is one of them. Now I do not wish to offend anyone but I feel compelled to say that this article is incredibly poor. Horrifying. It is full of original research left and right with not a single in line reference. There's even an advertisement for a place that has somehow found its way here. An advert that has been around since June 2007. Is there nobody that watches this article? What makes this most ridiculous though is that the music of Ireland is one of the world's most well-known regional or ethnic music. There has to be dozens, if not hundreds, of books written on Irish music in one form or another. There must be all sorts of reliable sources that one can find on the internet about Irish music. I could do miracles all by my lonesome on something as relatively little known like folk metal yet this article on the music of Ireland can be neglected to such an extent? I find it hard to believe it was ever a good article. Can someone pinpoint the exact date that it was ever considered a good article because I really like to know.
As far back as September 2004, this article has included a paragraph on an apparently non-notable Irish hip-hop scene. I said apparently non-notable because not one of the five groups mentioned in that paragraph even have their own article page on wikipedia. All red links and nobody bats an eye? Since September 2004, might I emphasise. And celtic metal is part of the black metal scene? Excuse me if my fully referenced work on celtic metal indicates no such thing. Nobody comes across the term "Celtic battle metal" and think neologism? Then you have this sentence: "Ireland was comparatively poorly-represented in the growing electronic music genre, but several groups did release albums, such as Skintone." If its poorly-represented, why even mentioned it? Can you spot the problem with this phrase: "Country and Western music from the United States returned back over the ocean and is immensely popular in Ireland." All that just from one section in the article.
Perhaps the most blatant problem though is the paragraph at the lead section where not one but 29 different bands or artists are listed as examples of Irish groups with "success nationally and internationally." That's 29 bands! At least nobody had inserted a Celtic metal band in there. I might not be most knowledgeable person on Irish music but even I can tell that some of these 29 bands do not deserve to be on the list. The High Kings? Who? Oh, it's a group with a debut album only in 2008. What? Now, I've torn this article apart by ripping huge chunks of it away. I would have deleted a lot more only the result would have literally been an empty page. So I littered the article with tags requesting citations for many statements and questioning whether other statements are original research (and they are). I'm not going to work on this because it's not something I'm interested in. There are many other articles I'd rather devote my precious time to. I realize the article looks awful now with all the tags I inserted in the article but the awful appearance befits its awful substance. If anyone has a problem with that, go do the hard work and look for references. Perhaps people will now realize how much work the article really needs. I will offer this advice though: delete everything on the page and start the article all over again from scratch. That's what I did for other poorly written genre articles like gothic metal.--Bardin (talk) 11:26, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

This article is Music of Ireland, not "American Music Inspired by Irish Music" so I deleted the paragraph about American bands like Dropkick Murphys. They are NOT Irish, they are American. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.72.148.208 (talk) 21:11, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Over-elaborate and arrogant intrusion

The main brunt of the criticisms by "CCkkab" and "Bardin" fall on the introductory paragraphs - written by me. I have therefore deleted two contentious sentences and provided citations for every instance of a tag. Don't be over-awed by their arrogance. They only consider this article to be contentious because they are not familiar with the subject. If folkies were to read articles on rap, much of it would appear to be equally strange. I have deleted all the tags from the rest of the article. Anyone who puts more than six tags on an article that has existed for years, and been polished by dozens, deserved to told to "mind their own business". Ogg (talk) 21:16, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow. You're being rather defensive and uncivil. Is this an article you own then? Contrary to what you suggested, the main brunt of my criticism did not fall on the introductory paragraphs but rather the body of the article, full of original research that lacks in-line citations to meet verifiability. I had already removed some blatant original research but did not remove them all since the article would be left rather barren as a result. The entire sections on Irish rock and classical music are completely devoid of references, for instance. You did not improved the article and yet you removed the tags. I daresay that is very inappropriate. The fact that other articles are as poorly written as this is not an excuse to remove the tags. Nor is it of any relevance that this article has been in existence for years. A house can become dilapidated over time and that is exactly what this article has become when I stumbled on it. If you cannot improve this article and address the concerns that more than one other editor has expressed, then you should heed your own insult and mind your own business. Please do not remove the tags again. --Bardin (talk) 02:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I wrote all of the folk section, and almost every sentence within it was tagged - unjustly. You seem to be saying that it's OK to accuse wikipedia contributers of the crime or "Original research", even though a seach on the web would have revealed that the information is out there after all. The business of the Chieftains being responsible single-handedly of reviving the bodhran is a fact. All you had to do was to bother to read the Wikipedia articles on Sean O'Riada, Ceoltoiri Cualan, and The Chieftains. If you want to create enemies, I recommend that you put many tags into articles that you do not have much extertise in. Aslo try deleting huge sections of article without starting a debate in the "Talk" section BEFORE doing anything drastic. The Clancy brothers were massivly important in the folk revival in Ireland. They were an Irish group, working in the USA. I have reinstated a sentence about them, and a bit about the bodhran. Please do not remove them without discussing it on the talk page first. Someone had put a tag in a header concerning "Original research", yet there is nothing the talk section about it, nor any tags within the article pinpointing it. I have therefore removed that bit of the heading. I don't see anything "unclear" about the citations I provided so I have removed that complaint as well. Ogg (talk) 04:38, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Wow again. You really do have an ownership issue with this article. I am just following wikipedia's policies, something that you apparently need to familiarise yourself with. I'm not accusing anyone of any crime but original research is not something that is acceptable on wikipedia. Articles are not written merely for experts to read but for everyone else. It matters not if I have any expertise in the subject matter. Any sentence or claim that do not meet wikipedia's guidelines or policies regarding verifiability and original research should be removed. Don't tell me something is a fact if there is no supporting evidence for it. If this business of the Chieftains being "single-handedly" responsible for reviving the bodhran is a fact, then surely you can find and use some reliable source to support it. What you are using is a fanpage on the internet.
You are asking me now not to remove these unsupported claims but you have no problems removing the tags that other editors and myself have added to this article. One example of an unclear citation is this webpage used for the claim that Irish stepdance was performed at ceilis, organised competitions and at some country houses where local and itinerant musicians were welcome. I see no mention of the words ceilis or competition on that webpage. More importantly, there are seven different articles on that single page. Which one exactly are you citing and for what? The original research tag is for the many sentences that are completely unverified and unsupported by any reliable sources as references. Do not remove these tags again.
Also please refrain from tagging your edits as minor when they are not minor. Only superficial differences such as typos and formatting should be tagged as minor. Adding entire sentences are not. Before you go around calling other editors arrogant for messing up your precious work, perhaps you should take a look and read all the relevant policies and guidelines of wikipedia. I am perfectly within my right to remove any unsupported sentences that come across as original research. Such sentences as "This was the first time that sales of Irish music records became substantial." If that's a fact, then please provide reliable sources as references. --Bardin (talk) 05:41, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
The Clancy Brothers were the first group to produce an album of traditional Irish music that reached the UK charts. Source: "The Guinness book of British Hit records". If their recordings were selling well in the UK, it's a pretty safe bet that they were selling better in Ireland. Unfortunately record companies are notoriously secretive about the actual volume of sales, so a definitive number cannot be quoted. You just have to accept this as probable.
If that's the sort of prose that has to be put into Wikipedia in order to get past censors like you, then Wikipedia is not the place for me. You might just as well replace the encyclopedia with a collection of quotations followed by a collection of citations. Not exactly user-friendy. Not exacly flowing prose. A country house party is a type of ceili. The fact that the word "ceili" doesn't appear on the page is irrelevant. I leave the article for somebody else to repair.Ogg (talk) 06:59, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Wow yet again. You went from "the Clancy Brothers were the first group to produce an album of traditional Irish music that reached the UK charts" to "it's a pretty safe bet that they were selling better in Ireland" and then from there to the sentence you actually wrote in the article: "the Clancy Brothers became famous in the USA"? Nice jump. Once again, original research and verifiability. If you do not like the policies of wikipedia, feel free to leave. --Bardin (talk) 07:13, 26 April 2008 (UTC)