Music

Music at the Tailteann Games 

David Keenan and Friends – 8pm, 20th September

At Tailteann, music was never just entertainment—it was memory, power, and praise. On 20th September at 8pm, we welcome David Keenan and Friends to Kells Priory for a night of music and mysticism inspired by the ancient Irish assemblies. Get your tickets here. 

In early Irish society, words held power. The skilled poet could elevate a warrior's deed to legend or reduce a king's reputation to ash with a few well-chosen verses. At assemblies like Tailteann, musicians weren't background entertainment—they were the memory-keepers, the reputation-makers, the voices that would carry the day's events into the future.

The filí occupied a unique position in Irish culture. Legal texts assign them substantial honour-prices, placing them among the highest ranks of society. While we can't know exactly how they performed at Tailteann, stories across Irish literature describe poets who commanded respect through their mastery of language, law, and lineage. Their words could heal feuds or start them.
Training for such roles was clearly intensive, though details vary across sources. The image that emerges is of poet-musicians who spent years mastering not just artistic technique but legal knowledge, genealogy, and the intricate web of relationships that bound Irish society together. They were walking libraries in an age before books.

Music competitions certainly took place at major Irish assemblies, even if we lack detailed accounts of how they worked. The consistent pattern across sources suggests contests where technical skill, creativity, and knowledge all mattered. Victory would have meant more than a prize—it established reputation across kingdoms.

The instruments that survive in archaeological contexts—fragments of harps, evidence of pipes and horns—hint at the soundscape of these gatherings. The harp in particular held symbolic power as well as musical function, appearing on coins and royal regalia as well as in poets' hands.

Dancing, too, appears in references to Irish assemblies, though the evidence is scattered. The physical demands would have made it another form of competition, requiring the same stamina and skill as athletic contests. Community celebration and individual performance likely blended together as day turned to evening.

What's certain is that music served purposes beyond entertainment. In a largely oral culture, the poet's memory was the only guarantee that heroic deeds would survive. The champion who won at Tailteann needed the poet's approval as much as the judge's—without the song, the victory might as well never have happened.

When Tailteann was revived in 1924, music and poetry exhibitions drew packed audiences who understood instinctively that these arts belonged alongside athletics. The organizers recognized something that echoes through Irish culture: that the voice raised in song or story is as worthy of celebration as the body trained for contest.

At Kells Priory, we continue this understanding. Music and poetry compete alongside physical prowess because they always have—because the Irish tradition has never separated the cultivation of mind, voice, and body in the pursuit of excellence.