Welcome to RASCAL

RASCAL is an electronic gateway to research resources in Ireland. You can use this web-site to search and browse information about the wide range of research and special collections held in libraries, museums and archives across the region. The Directory consists of comprehensive descriptions of collections available to researchers in the Humanities and Social Sciences recording details of content, location, format, and access. Links to institutions' on-line catalogues and other digital resources are provided where appropriate.

Featured Collection

Bunting Manuscript Collection

Major collection of Irish musical manuscripts, notebooks and correspondence etc concerning the work of the Irish Music Collector and Musician, Edward Bunting (1773-1843) arising out of the Belfast Harpers Festival of 1792 and published in ‘A General Collection of Ancient Irish Music’ in 1796 (revised 1809 and 1840).

Nicholas Carolan on the terminology of 'uilleann pipes' - free download

The story of how the term ‘union pipes’ came into public use begins with a concert performance in London on 14 May 1788 (225 years ago on this day!) Today Nicholas Carolan publishes a specialist essay on the terminology of the native Irish bagpipes now called 'uilleann pipes'. This exclusive PDF download is now freely available from the ITMA website.

http://www.itma.ie/digitallibrary/pdfdownloads/

ITMA makes Tunes of the Munster Pipers available online

The first 100 tunes from the archive's first publication 'Tunes of the Munster Pipers: Irish Traditional Music from the James Goodman Manuscripts', edited by the late Dr Hugh Shields & published in 1998 are now available as interactive scores.

http://www.itma.ie/digitallibrary/score/goodman/

The Inishowen Song Project

Local Donegal organisation, the Inishowen Traditional Singers’ Circle  (ITSC) and the Irish Traditional Music Archive (ITMA) in Dublin have collaborated to host song material collected in Inishowen on the  Archive’s website .  Funded locally by Inishowen Development Partnership, the project also provides a template for providing maximum public access on the Internet to local and regional traditional music materials collected anywhere in Ireland or in the Irish diaspora.

http://www.itma.ie/digitallibrary/about/inishowen

http://www.inishowensinging.ie