'Memories of dancing in West Clare and beyond' by Michael Tubridy, dancer, musician on flute and concertina, and former member of Ceoltóirí Chualann and the Chieftains opens this book with personal reminiscences of traditional social dancing in Clare and Dublin from the 1940s to the 1960s.'The study of oral traditions of music' by Dr Thérèse Smith, ethnomusicologist, lecturer in the Department of Music, University College Dublin examines challenges facing third-level students from a background of music literacy studying music from oral tradition.

The much admired, remarkable & true story of "The gallant female sailor" or "Ann Jane Thornton" by John Moulden, researcher at the Centre for the Study of Human Settlement and Historical Change, National University of Ireland, Galway is a study of a traditional Ulster song about a disguised female sailor and the true story of the nineteenth-century Donegal woman on which it was based.'Philip O'Sullivan Beare on Irish music' byNicholas Carolan, director of the Irish Traditional Music Archive, sources references in Latin to Irish music and dance - with English translation - from published and unpublished works of the 1620s by an Irish historian in exile in Spain.

'Collecting songs "by hand" in the fifties' by Dr Hugh Shields reflects on collecting traditional songs without recording equipment from the early 1950s, and comments on notable Irish predecessors. Thirteen important books and thirty-five sound recordings are reviewed by a variety of performers and scholars: Finbar Boyle, Catherine E. Foley, Kenneth S. Goldstein, Liam Mac Con Iomaire, Dermot McLaughlin, Jimmy O'Brien Moran, Brian Mullen, Tom Munnelly, Siobhán Ní Laoire, Éamonn Ó Bróithe, Eamonn O'Doherty, Lisa Shields, Jackie Small, Seán ua Súilleabháin, Fintan Vallely, and the editors. A select classified bibliography 1985-2000, compiled by Hugh Shields, Maeve Gebruers and Nicholas Carolan, contains 423 entries. A select classified discography 1985-2000, compiled by Nicholas Carolan, Joan McDermott and Thérèse Smith, contains 558 entries.

The bibliography and discography, which are based on the holdings of the Irish Traditional Music Archive, are controlled by a name index compiled byLisa Shields.