The road sign for the Creagh Cemetery. The Skibbereen/Baltimore road is on the left, and where the trees are on the right is the beginning of the road to Inish Beg.
James Goodman was an Irish cleric for the Church of Ireland who preached in Irish. At the age of 30, he learned to play the uilleann pipes, the national bagpipe of Ireland, and began his great collection of Irish music. Volume 1, which is dated May 2, 1861, contains nearly 700 tunes of every description. He copied some from other sources but the majority he notated by himself from the playing of Munster pipers. The dance music for the most part had been taken down from the playing of Tom Kennedy, a piper, who had come to live nearby.
In 1879, Goodman was appointed Professor of Irish in Trinity College, in Dublin. For the rest of his life he spent 6 months in Dublin and 6 in Skibbereen. He also published a Hymn Book in Irish. In all his collections, over 2000 tunes were annotated in both Irish and English.