First Irish - Irish bouzouki makers

[nkforster]

Been doing a bit of research, and it seems many early (70’s) "Irish bouzouki" makers were English - does anyone have an idea who the first Irish makers were?

Nigel
www.nkforsterguitars.com

[Dacraw54]

Joe Foley.

[zoukboy]

Joe Foley.

Sorry - misread that. Joe might indeed have been the first Irish builder but I am not sure.

[michaeljking]

There was a documentary on the irish Bouzouki in the irish language, posted to Youtube but seems to be taken down now, Features the origin story of the instrument, english builder for an irish player, and the first Irish Builder Joe Foley

Ceird an Cheoil, Basúcaí, Bouzouki, The Art of Music Instrument Making,TG4

Found a vid
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x19l020

[Reinhardt]

I know Joe Foley very well and had one of his very first bouzoukis dating back to 1979. It now belongs to a friend of mine and is still very playable. It was based on a Peter Abnett bouzouki one of which Joe had. He did an almost perfect copy and then went on to develop his own designs and ideas. At that time in Ireland, there was a French guy? Jan Mulyeart who also made bouzoukis and mandolins but only in very small quantities. He was really a harp maker.

Paul Doyle in Galway has been on the scene for quite some time as well as has Martin Faherty from Cork. Derek Nelson who traded under the name of Danvel Instruments also built CBOM instruments. He in fact made Donal Lunny's solid electric bouzouki which he used in Moving Hearts. There was also a very small number of really top quality bouzoukis made by Andrew Robinson in the late 70s/early 80s. Manus Lunny played one for years and Donal played a huge 10 stringer of his for a long time.

There are many more makers in Ireland now such as Frank Tate and Siveen instruments. Was pretty difficult in the old days to get your hands on a decent bouzouki. A lot of the early Irish players played round back greek bouzoukis. There used to be a great shop in Dublin called The Music Shop Ranelagh. The shop used to have really high quality instruments like Mansons, and the odd Abnett. They got a consignment of about 12 greek bouzoukis in 1977 or so and these were all snapped up really quickly by would be Donal Lunny's like myself. Still have it!!

Joe is still hard at work. He always resisted setting up a website. Dont think he even uses email to be honest!!

John

[Reinhardt]

This is a photo of my 1979 or 78 bouzouki by Joe Foley. It's being played by a pal of mine who I sold it to in 1982 to buy another Foley. I'm pretty certain it was one of the very first bouzoukis Joe made, in the first 10 of the hundreds he has made so far. As you can see, it's nearly identical to Peter Abnett's bouzoukis.

John

[Dacraw54]

Joe runs a Sunday night trad session at O'Donoghues in Merrion Row. I joined it one night, got to play Joe's personal zouk - on Luke Kelly's stool, and even played a few Bluegrass Tunes.
Joe is a great man for a jar and a chu-en - Dublin pronunciation of the American Toon (tune). He's a National Treasure.

[Dagger Gordon]

There was a documentary on the irish Bouzouki in the irish language, posted to Youtube but seems to be taken down now, Features the origin story of the instrument, english builder for an irish player, and the first Irish Builder Joe Foley

Ceird an Cheoil, Basúcaí, Bouzouki, The Art of Music Instrument Making,TG4

Found a vid
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x19l020

Gosh, well done for coming up with a Youtube of that Ceird an Cheoil bouzouki programme. All of the shows on different instruments were very good, I thought.