The Irish Traditional Music Archive (ITMA) has announced that it will present a new public exhibition of the Christy Moore Collection in January 2026. The Archive is also currently recruiting a Project Officer to work on the collection.

Moore donated his personal archive to ITMA in recent years with the aim of making it accessible to the public. The collection spans the 1970s to the 2020s and includes handwritten songbooks, setlists, research notes, correspondence, sheet music, photographs, artefacts, posters, gig programmes, commercial and non-commercial sound recordings, printed books and digital audio files. ITMA Archivist Maeve Gebruers is currently working through the material.

Over the past 18 months, the singer has also been recording his repertoire at the Archive with sound engineer Adam Girard. In each recording session, Moore is providing contextual information about the songs, including their origins and his process in working with them. 

Speaking to the Journal of Music, ITMA Director Liam O’Connor explained that the idea for the Christy Moore Collection emerged following the launch of the Drawing from the Well video series in 2020, which featured material from the Liam O’Flynn Collection. Moore, who performed with O’Flynn in the band Planxty, watched the series and subsequently began discussions with the Archive about donating his own personal collection. Commenting on the donation, O’Connor said:

It is a tremendous honour for ITMA that Christy Moore is placing his trust in the Archive to illuminate his artistic philosophy, his deep gratitude to those who preserved songs before him, and to inspire younger generations to continue composing in the traditional ballad form he has mastered. 

Christy embodies so much of what is finest in Irish traditional and folk music. He is one of Ireland’s most influential and beloved living artists. Through his archive, we gain insight into an artist at work – the experiences, events, and songs that shaped his life in music.

He continued:

We see the creative processes that brought songs like ‘Nancy Spain’ – composed by Irish singer-songwriter Barney Rush – into the communal canon, transforming them into folk songs through Christy’s interpretation and popularity. He also revived older songs from historical collections, such as ‘The Curragh of Kildare’ from P.W. Joyce’s Old Irish Folk Music and Songs, epitomising Brendan Kennelly’s line: ‘All songs are living ghosts awaiting a living voice.’

Above all, Christy honours the songs he inherited – old songs passed on by collectors such as Frank Harte, Tom Munnelly and P.W. Joyce, as well as contemporary songs from writers like Wally Page and Barney Rush. Despite his fame, Christy remains deeply humble – a creative artist immersed in the folk tradition whose contemporary songs have helped shape modern Ireland.

Drawing from the Well and exhibition preparations
The Drawing from the Well series is a video and concert initiative from ITMA that aims to inspire artists to engage with archival material and bring it to new audiences. The next Drawing from the Well concert – the seventh in the series – will take place on 20 May at the National Concert Hall and features Dónal Lunny and Andy Irvine. Moore recently presented the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards Lifetime Achievement Award to Lunny at an event in Vicar Street in February.

In preparation for the Christy Moore exhibition, ITMA is planning to develop a new public exhibition space on the ground floor of the OPW-owned premises at 73 Merrion Square in Dublin. The exhibition will offer audiences a unique insight into the singer’s creative work over several decades. The space is expected to be used for future exhibitions of other collections as well.

ITMA is also creating a new space at the rear of the building for a planned artist-in-residence and archivist-in-residence programme funded by The Shared Island Initiative.

A new position of Project Officer for the Christy Moore Collection has been created to lead the development of the in-house public exhibition space, co-ordinate archival work, manage the curation of materials, and liaise with Christy Moore and his manager to prepare for a public launch in January 2026. The position is supported by the Heritage Council and the deadline for applications is 28 April.

For further details, visit www.itma.ie.