Restrictions to Access

Use of audio materials may require production of listening copies.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Julie Henigan Field Recordings of Irish Singers #20036, Southern Folklife Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Julie Henigan in September 1986 and 1994 (Acc. 103704).

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• Ballads, English.
• Ballads, Irish.
• Fiddle tunes--Ireland.
• Folk music--Ireland.
• Folk songs--Ireland.
• Henigan, Julie.
• Musicians--Ireland.

Julie Henigan is a white musician and folklorist from Springfield, Mo. She grew up listening to many different kinds of music; and, although Early music is another of her passions, it was traditional American, British, and Irish music to which, as a performer, she was most drawn. This interest led her not only to teach herself guitar, banjo, dulcimer, and Irish-style fiddle, but also to seek out and learn from traditional singers and musicians, and eventually to pursue a Master's degree in folklore, which she obtained from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Most of her scholarly work has focused on traditional Irish song and on southern American music. She has played music professionally for a number of years, though she has usually combined performing with her work as a student, an archivist, a free-lance oral historian and folklorist, writer, substitute teacher, and lecturer. Her oral history projects have included "Medicine in the Ozarks" and the United Hebrew Congregations Oral History Project, and she has lectured on traditional Irish and American music at conferences and for private organizations in several countries, including the Willie Clancy Summer School, in Miltown Malbay, Co. Clare. She has spent a considerable amount of time in both England and Ireland, studying, working, and touring.

She recently completed a Ph.D. in English Literature and Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame, writing a dissertation entitled "Literacy and Orality in Eighteenth-Century Irish Song." Her publications include articles in Ulster Folklife, The Companion to Irish Traditional Music (edited by Fintan Vallely), The Old-Time Herald, The North Carolina Folklore Journal, and New Hibernia Review. Several of her folklore-related articles have been reprinted on the Musical Traditions website.

Source: juliehenigan.com

Field recordings of Irish singers performing traditional Irish songs and prayers in Irish and English, with interviews about community life and the song tradition. Songs include children's songs, love songs, migration songs, and ballads. Julie Henigan, a white folklorist and musician from Springfield, Mo., made these open reel recordings as part of a Youthgrant project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The recordings were later used as source material for Henigan's documentary on Irish song called As I Rode Out, which was first broadcast on NPR in 1981. Singers featured on the recordings include Neili Ní Dhomnhaill from Rann na Feirste, County Donegal; Paddy Tunney, who lived in Salthill, County Galway; Josie Sheain Jack from Carna, County Galway; Aodh Ó Duibheannaigh from Rosses, County Donegal. Also included is a live recording of a singing session sponsored by Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann in Ceathru Rua, County Galway.

The collection also contains related documentation and additional audio recordings made by Julie Henigan in the mid 1980s, including interviews with Irish folk singers, Sally Coyne, Bridget Fitzgerald, and Mick Moloney, as well as a live recording of Eunice Yeatts McAlexander's unaccompanied ballad singing, with an interview about her family's musical heritage. This recording was made by Henigan in 1985 at the informant's home in Meadows of Dan, Va. Additionally, there is a cassette copy of Julie Henigan's 1993 release, American Stranger. Documentation found in the collection consists of tape logs with song titles prepared by former staff of the SFC and interview transcripts presumably created by Julie Henigan.

• Audiocassette (FS-2186, FS-4493)
• Audiotape (FT-1789-1806, FT-6237-6247)