"The 'Child Ballad' in Ireland," a Multimedia Presentation by Ian Lynch

The Sensorium of Reading, with the co-sponsorship of the Department of English and the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute, is pleased to host Ian Lynch, acclaimed practitioner and scholar of Irish traditional music, member of award-winning band Lankum, and producer and host of the podcast Fire Draw Near. Lynch will be singing live and treating us to aural and visual arcana drawn from his academic and practical study of the ballad tradition in Ireland, Britain, and their diasporas.

Of the 305 ballads included in Francis James Child’s seminal 19th-century publication, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, versions of around 50 have been identified in the Irish tradition. This multimedia presentation will serve as an introduction to the fascinating subject of the so-called ‘Child Ballad’ in Ireland and, amongst other aspects, will examine the ways in which these ballads made their way into Ireland from the 18th century onwards to become embedded in Irish traditional culture as well as the changes that they underwent in the process.