Overview

This book looks at the attitudes of Protestant performers to Traditional music in Northern Ireland. It reflects on broader Protestant community views of the music through their eyes, and considers too the impact of historical literature, political statements and other interventions which have affected and shaped Traditional music today. Traditional music is taken to mean the dance music, forms of dance and style of songs which were the onetime entertainment of rural people prior to urbanisation and the development of mass forms of entertainment. The data collected for this study was originally researched in 1992 in a profoundly different political climate to that which burgeons in 2008. This study does not offer conclusions, but presents musician's attitudes as a contribution to ongoing debate and assertion about culture and identity in Northern Ireland.

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9781859184431

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Reviews

Examines attitudes toward Irish traditional music among Protestant musicians and the wider Protestant community.

Performer, composer, teacher, and writer on Irish music, Vallely (a native of County Armagh in Northern Ireland) has several books to his credit, among them Blooming Meadows: The World of Irish Traditional Musicians (1998) and an edited volume, The Companion to Irish Traditional Music (CH, May'00, 37-2849). In the present book, he briefly explores how traditional music has been used in Northern Ireland to define cultural, religious, political, and national identity. Certain musical styles and instruments in Ireland are often characterized as Irish, Catholic, nationalist, or republican, as opposed to Protestant, loyalist, or unionist. The author focuses on Protestant attitudes toward traditional music. He argues that such common stereotypes as Catholics dance, Protestants march artificially divide communities in Northern Ireland and ignore and deny shared musical influences and traditions of long standing. Interspersed with commentary from nearly two dozen musicians, singers, politicians, and members of the media, this book will be most appropriate for readers with some prior knowledge of ethnomusicology and Irish studies. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers. Examines attitudes toward Irish traditional music among Protestant musicians and the wider Protestant community.

Author Information

Fintan Vallely is course co-ordinator and lecturer in Traditional Music in Dundalk Institute of Technology and is the author of The Companion to Traditional Irish Music

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