DkIT researcher Colleen Savage and graduate Dr Seán McElwain recently presented research on the music of the Oriel region as part of Féile Oriel in Monaghan. The bilingual event was organised by Muineachán le Gaeilge took place in the Market House and focused on the musical heritage of the wider Oirghialla area. 

DkIT, the event featured musical performances, by both Colleen and Seán, of archival materials now making their work back into the living repertoire. Seán’s presentation illuminated the musical heritage of Co. Monaghan, including information regarding early traditional harp players, the local musical gentry, and the region's rich fiddle tradition. Seán also performed music from the recently published 'Our Dear Dark Mountain with the Sky Over It - The James Whiteside Collection' (www.oddm.ie). Colleen focused on the song traditions of South Armagh with a particular focus on Irish-language songs that she has enlivened from archival sources.

Dr Seán McElwain is a graduate of Dundalk Institute of Technology. An expert in the field of Irish traditional music and in particular the music of the Sliabh Beagh region of north Monaghan / east Fermanagh, he has most recently co-ordinated and directed a recording project entitled ‘Our Dear Dark Mountain With The Sky Over It’. Based on his doctoral research at DkIT supervised by Dr Daithí Kearney and Dr Helen Lawlor, the project has focused on the musical heritage of the Sliabh Beagh region, returning historic musical material recovered from unpublished manuscripts and archival recordings to some of the region’s many fine traditional musicians. He is Head of Programme Development and lecturer in Irish traditional music at the Irish Institute of Music and Song in Balbriggan.

Colleen Savage is a researcher in the Department of Creative Arts, Media and Music who recently completed an MA by Research on the song traditions of South Armagh, funded with a DkIT Postgraduate Research Scholarship under the joint supervision of Dr Daithí Kearney and Dr Gearóid Trimble. She recently curated an Arts and Culture Song Engagement project entitled 'The Dalin' Men of Crossmaglen' funded by Newry, Mourne and Down District Council and the Ring of Gullion Landscape Partnership. The project engaged with more than 85 singers over a 3-month period where I researched and taught a collection of songs from the South Armagh region, engaged in a process of community collecting and to end held an afternoon performance of the collection of songs, some of which were accompanied by the Oriel Traditional Orchestra. She also recently presented at the Spring conference of the Traditional Song Forum and Contemporary Folklore Research Conference, hosted at Sheffield University. Her paper focused on the ballad tradition of south Armagh. She has been invited to contribute to a forthcoming chapter on the relationship between songs and a sense of place.