The Irish Times, December 9th 2004 
Tuning Up: author launches book on prehistoric music
Mr. Simon O’Dwyer playing a replica late Bronze Age horn – the Dowris horn found at Dowris, near Kilcormac, in Co. Offaly – at he launch of his book ‘Prehistoric Music of Ireland’ at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin yesterday. Photograph: Frank Miller.
The Irish Times, December 11th 2004,
The Arts Page
Golden Oldies by Catherine Foley
The deep tones of the Loughnashade trumpa have healing qualities, said Simon O’Dwyer, author of the newly published Prehistoric Music of Ireland. The musician and researcher, who has reconstructed a number of 
prehistoric instruments, played a tune to open the charkas of those who attended the book’s launch in the National Museum, Kildare Street, Dublin this week. Among the crowd were composers Michael Holohan, and Brent Parker, from Achill Island, Rossa ÓSnodaigh of the group Kila and Lady Rosse of Birr Castle. Prof Darragh Smyth, the head of Irish Celtic Studies at DIT, whose book Cúchulainn, an Iron Age Hero will be published by Irish Academic Press next spring, he said “music did play quite an important part” in prehistoric times. The book was launched by Éamon Ó Cuív TD, the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs and a neighbour in Corr na Móna in Co. Galway of the author and his wife Maria O’Dwyer.
“There’s a huge gap of time between when these were created and our present day,” said Nicholas Carolan, director of the Irish Traditional Music Archive. “Their whole context has disappeared. Their social context… We don’t know how they played them or what they played on them. “O’Dwyer thanked above all Dr. Ned Kelly, keeper of Irish Antiquities at the National Museum, “who waved a horn under my nose in 1987 and said, ‘What can you do with this?’” He explained he has been hooked ever since on discovering more about these ancient instruments. Prehistoric Music of Ireland by Simon O’Dwyer is published by Tempus Publishing.
Irish Independent, 7 November 2002
Come blow your horn: Music through the ages
Blowing up a storm… Much to the delight of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Minister Eamon O Cuiv, 
musicians and instrument makers Simon and Maria O’Dwyer play a reproduction of a 2,000 year old dord ard and adharc at the launch yesterday of Prehistoric Music Ireland’s new cd ‘Old to New’ at the National Museum of Ireland in Kildare Street, Dublin. Picture; Martin Nolan.
The Irish Times, November 9, 2002
Out on the town by Catherine Foley
Music from the grave
Musical instruments from prehistoric times were brought to life in the National
Museum this week. Simon O’Dwyer, with a selection of horns, drums,
bells and trumpas modeled on early Irish artifacts from the Stone, 
Bronze
and Iron Age, played a selection of traditional and new pieces. He was
accompanied by his wife Maria O’Dwyer and John Meskell from Kenmare, Co.
Kerry. The collection of music, which is available on a CD entitled ‘Old
to New’ was launched by their neighbour from Corr na Móna in East
Co. Galway, the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Éamon
Ó Cuív. Nicholas Carolan, director of the Irish Traditional
Music Archive, and presenter of the latest ‘Come West Along the Road’
series on RTE television, praised O’Dwyer’s work with the instruments
as they increase “our knowledge of their sonic potential”.
Another enthusiast, Daragh Smyth, a lecturer in DIT Kevin Street, recalled the
success of a recent visit to celebrate Halloween in the Cruachán Aí
cave and heritage centre in Tulsk, Co. Roscommon, where O’Dwyer provided
the “prehistoric music”. “As no written or oral music
survives from these times, we can never be sure what was played by the musicians
or the circumstances in which instruments were used,” said O’Dwyer.
However, the original instruments, which are kept in the National Museum,
including a bronze horn, which was cast 3,000 years ago, “retains its
integrity as a professional instrument and continues to function,” he
explained. “The only way we can find out how people lived is through
the remains that come out of the ground,” said Prof Barry Raftery, of
UCD’s archaeology department. In archaeology, there are no buried
texts, he said. “It’s the people we are looking for, and seeing
how close we can get to the people. It’s quite impressive to see
how they made those things.” Another scientist, Ingelise Stuijts,
of Discovery Programme, who has conducted studies on one of the ancient wooden
horns, said the skill and craftsmanship was amazing. “You see the sweat
of prehistoric people on those instruments,” she said. The website
for more information about this music is www.prehistoricmusic.com
Irish Examiner, 21 December 2004
Breathing life into the past by Paula Shields
On a crisp December morning, the stately foyer of the National Museum, Simon O’Dwyer is playing a reproduction of a wind instrument that predates Jesus Christ by about 100 years. The slender, elongated S shape and the long eerie tones of the trumpa créda create a flurry of excitement in the usually hushed atmosphere and draw a small fascinated crowd, including museum staff. Accompanied by his wife Maria on bodhrán, Simon O’Dwyer provides a taste of what music from the Iron Age might have sounded like. But for him, it all started with Light in the Western Sky, the 1982 album by traditional Irish band Stockton’s Wing. As a musician, O’Dwyer’s first choice had been guitar, and a career in songwriting. “Then I bought a bodhrán and that sucked me into the Irish tradition.” Hearing Steve Cooney play didgeridoo on Light in the Western Sky gave him the idea of introducing old instruments into Irish trad. “And lo and behold all these horns turned up.” The horns in question date from the Bronze Age. In 1987, O’Dwyer paid a visit to the National Museum in search of its collection of pre-historic instruments. Dr. Kelly referred him to London-based Dr. Peter Holmes, the world authority on prehistoric metal instruments. He organized to have a couple of reproductions made of a pair of Bronze Age horns from Antrim, by which stage O’Dwyer was hooked.
To date, there are more than 100 original Bronze Age horns and 39 hand bells still in existence, which originated in Ireland. As well as the National Museum in Dublin, they are kept in the Ulster Museum in Belfast and in England. “More than one third of the total world population of prehistoric metal instruments are Irish, so they are incredibly important.” With the Dublin Art Foundry, the musician set about making reproductions and learning how to play them. No easy feat, given the timeline and the paucity of recordings. “It’s a combination of trial and error, to work out what [the instruments] were like, what you can do and what you can’t. Also, there’s common sense, how you carry an instrument, how you present it, what it may have been used for, will give you a hint as to how it might be positioned or what you might play on it.” O’Dwyer has made 40 horns in the last 15 years for customers around the world who order them to play or display. The instruments, he believes, were used for ceremonial purposes, as they are made to produce over tones. It is unlikely they would have been loud enough for war. As far as O’Dwyer is aware, he is the only musician playing them in the Irish tradition. One horn can be heard in LA in a Scottish pipe band, and others are in use in Scotland, England, Austria, Germany and Australia. “What I’m really hoping for is that, at some stage in the future, we can organize maybe 20 horns together, and I’ll compose a concert which will be performed. That would be amazing.”
But if it’s a warlike fanfare you want, then you need the great Iron Age trumpa, a clear favorite with O’Dwyer. “Basically, it’s a big loud brassy instrument that’s made to sound loud, to sound mean, if you want it to.” The most famous is the Loughnashade, discovered in Armagh in the 1790s and is now on display at the National Museum. The trumpa créda, which O’Dwyer was playing in the foyer of the National Museum, is based on the Loughnashade. But reproducing these horns is more problematic and more costly because they are made of sheet bronze. It took John Creed, five painstaking months of hand-beating bronze to recreate the instrument.
The Bekan horn, so-called after the bog in which it was found near Knock in the 1790s, is another striking instrument. Conical-shaped, made from yew, it is six feet long with a spiral of bronze ribbon along it. “It plays a lot of notes even though it’s got no finger holes in it, yet it produces a beautiful harmonic series. As far as we know, it’s unique to Ireland. There’s nothing else like it that we know of in the world, so it’s a great mystery.” In the science of music archaeology, O’Dwyer suggests that the most exciting find in the last 50 years in the world was discovered near Greystones in December 2003 – the Wicklow pipes. Once you attach a fipple the top of a whistle, to each of the six wooden pipes, they can be played. “You have a set of six low whistles or, in effect, an organ, the earliest organ. At 4,134 years old it’s 1,800 years older than the next oldest organ in the world, which is 322 BC from Alexandria.”
O’Dwyer has studied these instruments extensively and his fascination is that of the musician’s. “You can actually bring a silent artifact to life. Once you can make a perfect reproduction, then you can play it, and the amazing thing is that some of them are three or four thousand years old, they still have that beautiful integrity of musical instruments. They work.” A recent find in France of five examples of carnyx (a variation of the trumpa) has shown that there is still much we don’t know. “France means a whole new angle on the story again.” For all that Ireland has a vast collection of prehistoric and early medieval musical instruments; the study of music archaeology is relatively new. The O’Dwyers have published books, including the brand-new Prehistoric Music of Ireland, and issued CDs of the horns and trumps etc. Does O’Dwyer ever feel overwhelmed by the past? “We don’t know what was played two, three, four thousand years ago. We haven’t a notion. So what we’re playing on these instruments is modern composition from the 20th and 21st centuries AD, and amazingly enough, they are so good that they play. That is from something that’s coming from three thousand years ago. They made something so good that it still plays today.”
He has played them in all sorts of settings, from the National Symphony Orchestra to jazz. Composer Michael Holohan has written several pieces for prehistoric instruments. Looking at these beautiful, ancient instruments, it is easy to admire the artistry, but O’Dwyer points out the science involved. “These are specifically designed to produce certain overtones, certain harmonics. They show a very high level of engineering, of acoustic excellence, of casting. These weren’t fellows running around in skins. They were very advanced, very intelligent and very wealthy people.
Prehistoric Music Ireland,
Crimlin, Corrnamona,
Co. Galway, Ireland
Phone: +353(0) 949 548 396
bronzeagehorns@eircom.net
©2005,PREHISTORIC MUSIC IRELAND