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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My head starts to spin

When I think where I’ve been

Playin’ twin to an old fiddle tune

Bob Lucas, “The Road Is a Lover”

Since I discovered Irish traditional music at the age of seventeen, the tunes have taken me all kinds of places, from the mountains of Virginia, Sliabh Luachra in Ireland, and upstate New York to the flatter lands of New York City and southern Wisconsin. More people have offered tunes and friendship along the way than I can thank here, and the extent of my gratitude extends well beyond the limits of these few paragraphs.

This book would not have happened without the encouragement and generosity of mentors and friends—and it’s often difficult to distinguish between the two categories, since I am delighted to count my mentors as friends and have learned so much from my peers. In the Irish traditional music scene, I especially thank Connie O’Connell, Donal O’Connor, Liz Carroll, Philippe Varlet, Jackie Daly, Matt Cranitch, Bernadette McCarthy, and Maurice O’Keeffe (RIP)—my playing would not be what it is if not for you all. Likewise, my musical life and this book would not be nearly as rich without the camaraderie and insights of friends like Sara Read, Niamh Parsons, Laura Parmentier, Deirdre Ní Chonghaile, Alan Ng, Don Meade, Susan McKeown, Lori Madden, Sophie Liebregts, Sasha Hsuczyk, Alicia Guinn, Aoife Granville, Augie Fairchild, Eibhlín de Paor, Jean Denney, Alex Davis, Patrick Cavanaugh, Myron Bretholz, and Crystal Bailey.

My gratitude to Suzanne Cusick is greater than a few short sentences can express. I am especially thankful for all the intellectual energy, moral support, laughter, faith, and productive ass kicking she has given me over the years, and I am a better person and a better scholar for her friendship and mentoring. I am also grateful to my fabulous dissertation committee members, Jane Sugarman, Martin Daughtry, Lucy Delap, and Michael Beckerman, who gave vital feedback on this project in its earliest stages. I also greatly appreciate the input of Fred Maus, Zoe Sherinian, and Sean Williams, who have each moved seamlessly among the roles of reader, editor, and friend.

Sometimes friends offer support that encompasses and exceeds intellectual input, musical inspiration, and pure merriment. Rachel Mundy and Tomie Hahn have both encouraged me to step back, take a breath, think laterally, and engage in productive play—an approach that has shaped my work in subtle but important ways. Bonnie Gordon, Manuel Lerdau, and “the spawn” provided support of various kinds in the final stages of this project, including insightful conversations, merriment, and gelato breaks. I am also thankful to Elizabeth Keenan and Ryan Penagos for providing similar help and necessary fun in 2010 as I finished the dissertation that began this project.

My work has also benefited from many far-ranging conversations with Yvonne Wu, Lauren Weintraub Stoebel, Britt Scharringhausen, Gillian Rodger, Annie Randall, Monica Hairston O’Connell, Junko Oba, Gayle Murchison, Melanie Marshall, Maureen Mahon, Tamara Ketabgian, Lauron Kehrer, Ellen Joyce, Amy Jones, Kylie Quave Herrera, Nicol Hammond, Lillie Gordon, Denise Gill, and Susan Furukawa. Special thanks to Kylie, who helped name this book. I am also grateful to several of my Beloit College students for sharing their thoughts as students of Irish traditional music. They include Chris Thulien, Lucy Rosenmeier, Sadie Record (who also provided research assistance for this project), Sam Poyer, Sarah Newton, Rachel Homeniuk, Alyse Gowgiel, Renata Goetz, John Glennan, and Alex Cheong.

Several individuals and institutions have helped me greatly in their stewardship and sharing of materials and knowledge. Míle buíochas to Nicolas McAuliffe and Brenda Seebach for their generosity with private archival material, as well as to Anna Bale and Simon O’Leary at the National Folklore Collection at University College Dublin; Jack Roche at the Bruach na Carraige Teach Cheoil in Rockchapel, County Cork; Jeff Ksiazek at the Ward Irish Music Archives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and the staffs of the Irish Traditional Music Archive in Dublin, the National Library of Ireland, the British Library, New York University’s Tamiment Archives, and the Boston Public Library. Without the material support of Mc-Cracken and Mainzer fellowships at New York University, a Woodrow Wilson Women’s Studies Dissertation Completion Fellowship, an American Council of Learned Societies Recent Doctoral Recipients fellowship, and a sabbatical from Beloit College, this book might not exist. I am also grateful to have received a subvention from the AMS 75 PAYS Endowment of the American Musicological Society, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. And for their feedback and help at various stages, I am grateful to Suzanna Tamminen; Music/Culture series editors Deborah Wong, Sherrie Tucker, and Jeremy Wallach; everyone at Wesleyan University Press; and the readers of the initial manuscript.

In addition to my trad and academic families, I thank my family of origin for providing the gift of education and the space to be a nerdy bookworm fiddle player, as well as instilling in me an obligation to explore the mysteries of the past and the complexities of the present. In particular, my mother has modeled resilience, attention to detail, careful management of resources, and above all the importance of close listening as an act of generosity—skills that have helped me make my way as a musician and scholar in an uncertain world.

Go raibh míle maith agaibh.