Emerald Isle

Bronze Age Music in Ireland

Ancient treasures and wonders of Ireland, mysterious gems and gold, lost creatures and Irish wonders

Grasping the bull by the horns

The Irish love music, and it has long been said that the Irish race lived and breathed melodies, liable to burst into song at the drop of a hat. Few realise how far back the Irish musical tradition goes however - at least as far as we know!

Some of the earliest musical instruments which have been uncovered date from the Irish Bronze Age, in those mystical days before the knowledge of working iron was discovered. Three main types of instruments have been found, side blown horns, end blown horns or trumpets, and bells. We can be sure that various drums and even stringed instruments were also employed in fashioning music, but none have been found so far.

The horns and trumpets tend to produce haunting, deep bass notes in the region of D, or rich and full notes in E-flat, cast in clay so finely that you could almost put a finger through the side walls. This in fact happened to the Derrynane horn, and a weld repair was made to restore the instrument. Although it was once believed they could only produce a few notes, experimentation has revealed they have a surprisingly wide range of sounds, tones, overtones and notes.

They are played in a similar manner to the Australian didgeridoo, maintaining a steady flow of air by breathing in through the nose while blowing out with the mouth at the same time. A lot of skill was needed to play these prestigious and expensive instruments well.

This kind of clever metal braising work is almost unique in Europe, as are side-blown horns. The fact that they can still speak the eternal language of music today, after all this time, testifies to the astonishing quality of expertise and sophistication that went into making these instruments.

The cast-bronze horns of ancient Ireland account for more than half of all the contemporary bronze wind instruments found from Europe to the Middle East. Given the importance of cattle to early Irish culture, whereby even the word "road" means "cow trail", it's possible they were based on preceding cow-horn musical instruments. The great Irish epic, the Táin, tells the tale of a war started over eldritch bulls.

We can see that some bull horns grow straight out, while others bend either forwards or backwards, which suggests that the bronze horns were inspired by bull horns. Their low sounds are also reminiscent of bulls bellowing. Side blown horns were often cast in one piece, but the longer end-blown horns were usually constructed from several parts which fitted neatly together. Most of the horns have some kind of geometric decorations, grooves and bosses inscribed on them, which some researchers suggest might be related to the type of music that was played on them.

Most of the horns date from 1500 to 600 BC and vary in length from around thirty centimeters to more than a meter. They are often found in pairs in peat bogs, marshes and other watery locations, suggesting the horns and trumpets were usually played together. Unusually for items left in waterways, they were not damaged before. A horn is conical along its length with a mouthpiece for the embouchure in the side of the instrument, while a trumpet has a conical bell and a cylindrical tube added to the mouthpiece.

They were probably used in several situations, including during celebrations and feasting, for rituals, during battle, to send signals and warnings, and several have bronze rings attached so they could be easily carried, which probably means they were used in battle or during hunts. The magical horn of the Fianna, the Dord Fian, was said to produce a sound that could be heard throughout Ireland, and when it was blown would summon all of the Fianna to that place.



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