The bouzouki has quite a short history in Ireland, however the extent of it’s modern usage and has certainly earned it a place in any discussion on traditional music. The bouzouki is traditionally a Greek instrument, and was typically strung with six strings. However, in the 1950s an eight stringed bouzouki became popularised in Greece and this expanded the instrument’s possibilities.

It is widely accepted that Johnny Moynihan from Dublin was the first person to bring this new bouzouki to Ireland, and retuned it so that it would be similar to the Irish mandolin. Moynihan used the retuned instrument during the 1960s in his band Sweeney’s Men, which led to greater awareness of the instrument among Irish musical circles.

It was Dónal Lunny, alongside Peter Abnett, who took the further steps and worked on redesigning the instrument to suit the Irish traditional style. This included stringing the bottom two strings in unison as opposed to octave, replacing the round back with a flat back and widening the bottom shape. This is the type of bouzouki that constitutes a standard Irish bouzouki as we know it today.

In the following decades, the instrument grew quite rapidly in popularity as it filled helped a tonal gap within Irish bands. The bouzouki produces a warm, mellow sound that sounds similar to a twelve string guitar. It is similar in tone to an octave mandolin or a mandola, but the larger size gives it a larger sound and this makes the bouzouki an excellent instrument to help drive the rhythm by strumming chords, flourished with melody lines.

The story of the bouzouki is significant as it represents the ever-changing nature of folk music, and not in just in Ireland. Nearly all instruments in their relation to a national folk music tradition have had a beginning and a period of phasing into the social consciousness before they become an accepted instrument in that musical tradition. The Irish bouzouki is still young at around seventy years, but it has already established itself as a respected instrument in the contemporary Irish traditional scene.