The origin of Irish Folk Music
The origin of Irish Folk Music is centuries ago in the way of playing music of the Irish bards. The job of the bards, who mostly played the harp, was to tell legends of heroes, to comment topical political events and to entertain the courtly society. But constant invasions of the Vikings and above all the annexation of the Britons at the beginning of the 17th century and the systematic eradication of the old Irish traditions declined the once courtly culture, so that it almost disappeared completely. Every bard, harp-player or poet should be outlawed, persecuted and executed. Always in danger, the bards travelled from village to village, sang satirical songs about the English occupying forces, spread messages and kept alive the memory of a harmonic and heroic past. The once courtly music was taken over gradually by the ordinary people and was mixed with their music, which was fast dance music. Only the Irish Folk Music has such strong classical roots. English was ordered as the national and official language, so that even the old Gaelic songs were slowly forgotten. But the tunes remained and were provided with new words. Music is an important part of the Irish life and Ireland is the only country, which has a musical instrument as a national emblem: the harp. In general, you can say, that Irish folk music is divided into two parts: fast instrumental dance music and slow ballads or folk songs, which are sung. But in young past and present, there have also been fast folk songs, which are for the most part drinking songs.
