Alexander Martin Freeman (1878 in Tooting, London – 18 December 1959) was a scholar of medieval Irish texts and collector of Irish music.[1][2] A native of Surrey, he was educated at Bedford Grammar School and Lincoln College, Oxford.[3] He married a lady from Donegal.
He collected traditional songs from older generations of singers in the West Cork Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking area) of Ballyvourney, County Cork, during 1913/14, which became the Ballyvourney Collection.[2][4]His Ballyvourney collection featured as numbers 23–25 of the Journal of the Folk Song Society, 1920–21.[3] This collection consists of almost a hundred songs, with original texts, prose translations and annotations, constituting incomparably the finest collection published in our time of Irish songs noted from oral tradition.[3]
His other works of scholarship are varied, and includes his edition of Annals of Connacht (1944), his magnum opus.[1]
He was on the Publication Committee for the Irish Folk Song Society from 1920 until 1939, when the society was dissolved.[2] He contributed songs and texts occasionally to the Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. He sat on the editorial board of the Society as a member.
A lecture was given by Iarla Ó Lionáird on his Muskery Collection in Cork University on 30 January 2014.
Works
edit- Freeman, A. Martin (1920–1921). "Ballyvourney Collection (Irish songs)". Journal of the Folk-Song Society. 6 (23, 24, 25): xiii–xxvii, index, p. 355. JSTOR 4434091
References
edit- ^ a b O'Sullivan, Donal (December 1960), "A. Martin Freeman, 1878-1959", Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, 9 (1): 60, JSTOR 4521610
- ^ a b c O'Sullivan, Donal (1961), "Alexander Martin Freeman", Journal of the International Folk Music Council, 13: 94, doi:10.1017/S0950792200015337, JSTOR 835310, S2CID 251354954
- ^ a b c https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/3C04A3BCC37EA808A4FB2C14250F6865/S0950792200015337a.pdf/alexander-martin-freeman.pdf
- ^ Freeman (1920–1921).
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