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Music and Politics in Ireland: The Specificity of the Folk Revival in Belfast
Author(s): May McCann
Source: British Journal of Ethnomusicology, Vol. 4, Special Issue: Presented to Peter Cooke
(1995), pp. 51-75
Published by: British Forum for Ethnomusicology
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3060683 .
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May McCann
Academicdefinitionsof folk song have excludedIrish patrioticand nationalistsong
which,inconjunction
withthecultural of politically
avoidance in
sensitiveissuesendemic
northernIrishsociety,facilitatedthe integration
of middle-classCatholicsandProtestants
the folk revivialin Belfastwithinthe
in the folk revival.Thispapercontextualizes
historicalandcontemporary
settingof Irishnationalistpoliticsandsong andexploreshow
songhasbeenusedtoconstruct in"thebattleof twocivilisations".
identities
1 Gaeltachtrefersto Irishlanguage-speaking
districts,Galltachtto Englishlanguage-speaking
districts.
2 Theissueof whetheror notthefolkmusictraditiondiedoutin Irelandis partof a widerdebate
currentlybeingexploredin domainof language.See Hindley1990and6 Ciosdin1991.
51
Categories other than "folk song" such as the very broad "Irish Song"
(O'Boyle 1976), narrowingto "IrishBroadsideBallad"(Neillands 1986) and the
yet more specific "Irishsong chapbooksandballadsheets"(Shields 1986) in their
differingfoci, permitof an alternativerangeof "songs of the people"which more
or less includepolitical song. In his studyof Irishbroadsideballadsin theirsocial
and historicalcontexts, Neillands calculatedthat 26.4% out of a corpus of 2,459
songs are concernedwith themesof "politicsandhistory".His two otherthematic
categorieswere "religionand faith",and"sex, courtshipandmarriage".
Shields points out that the precisely defined subject of his article, the eight
collections of nineteenth-centurysong books and chapbookshousedin the library
of Trinity College, Dublin, though not abundant,are quite representativeof the
varied subjects and styles found in the Irish popularpress of that century. He
groups the texts into three categories. The first consists of "traditionalsongs in
folk idiom, including numeroussongs of English or Scottish origin...fromvery
early ballads to quite recent songs, and a very diverse Irish repertory...the
majority composed in the English of Ireland."The second category includes
"Social or political songs of local, newsworthy or ideological interest.... This
categoryderivesmuch of its style from the precedingone."And the final groupis
"Songs of urban origin, British and Irish, stylistically marked by an original
theatrical,literary or sub-literaryenvironment,including some songs imitating
folk idiom"(1986: 200).
The notion of "streetballad"used in collections (0 Lochlainn1968, 1984) and
compilations(Healy 1969) attemptsto providea notion of the rangeof songs the
people may have heardand sung, and although0 Lochlainn,following one of the
rules of folk-song definition, omits all songs by known authors,one finds many
political songs in his volumes. In his introductionhe expresses some regret
regardinghis exclusivity; "manyfine balladsby SamuelLover, Michael Scanlan,
P.J. McCall almost demandedinclusion.PerhapsI shall do a book of these yet, if
the Lord sparesme" (0 Lochlainn1984: viii).
Music and politics in Ireland
Virtuallysince we have knowledge of music in Ireland,its relationshipto politics
has been evident in terms of song content, music, and culturalmeanings. Irish
music per se, not just the sub-section"politicalsong",has been withinthe domain
of culturalpolitics throughoutIreland'scolonialrelationshipwith England.While
colonial influence in Irish music in the seventeenthcenturywas concernedwith
extinction,the eighteenthcenturyseemed bent on preservation.Colonialconcerns
with absorptionand eventuallymodernisationaffected the social structurewhich
supported the music. The development of cultural nationalism, and political
nationalism'suse of music and song, breathedfurthernew life into the tradition.
The colonial process, in one way and another,has played a significantpartin the
maintenanceand developmentof Ireland'sdistinctivetraditionalmusic.
In 1603 a proclamationwas issued by the Lord Presidentof Munsterfor the
exterminationby martiallaw of bards,pipersandpoets becauseof theirrole in the
last upsurge of Gaelic Irelandagainst the English. Throughoutthe seventeenth
Catholicantiquarians
CharlesO'Connor(1710-90), founderof the CatholicCommittee,who published
tractson the stateof the IrishCatholicsandwroteon the subjectof Irishhistoryin
general, edited O'Flaherty's work. It was in his capacity as a marginalised
Catholic countrygentlemanthat he had patronisedpoets like TurloughCarolan,
regardedas the chief musicianof Gaelic Irelandat his death.HistorianRoy Foster
describesO"Connor'smoderationas such thathis writingswere thoughtto be that
of a liberal Protestant (1988: 199). However, in a literary critique, Seamus
Deane's analysis stresses the political context of his antiquarianstudies (1992:
29):
Deane arguesthat the significance of his work was not that you should read the
Gaelic bards,but thatyou should give Catholicscivil rightsbecause, accordingto
Protestantantiquarians
Most antiquarians,however, were of the Protestantfaith, althoughnot uniformly
of the same political persuasion.Indeed the leadershipof radical, more or less
separatist political movements in Ireland in late eighteenth- and nineteenth-
century Irelandwas to a large extent Anglo-IrishProtestant,and in the North,
Presbyterian of Scottish descent also. Belfast-born and of Scottish descent,
Samuel Ferguson, however, was a unionist. He was ardently opposed to the
Catholic Church. And he was a prolific writer and researcher, engaged in
facilitatingthe emergenceof Gaelic cultureinto English prose and poetry. Yet it
was the Protestantnationalistpolitical balladeerof The Nation, Thomas Davis,
who inspired Ferguson's quest for the past. Indeed they were friends. Ferguson
surroundedhis Lamentfor ThomasDavis in a prose essay in which he distanced
himself from the politics of the founder of Young Ireland,while admiring his
motives and his character(0 Dtiill 1993: 5). Theirinterestin the past, including
its music and song serveddifferentpolitical agendas.
ILLUSTRATION
2: SIRSAMUEL ANDIRISHIDENTITY
FERGUSON
While Davis hoped to persuadefellow Protestantsto embracean Irishidentityin
pursuit of a nationalist "imagined community" (Anderson 1983), Ferguson
identified it as necessary for the legitimation, and greaterefficiency of Anglo-
Irish,unionistgovernanceof Ireland.sHe saw Protestantsas the naturalleadersof
Irelandand aimedto "nationalise"the mind of the gentryso thatit would be more
fitted to lead the populationand be more accepted in doing so. While never the
majority-Protestantview, there was a growing reading market increasingly
conscious of its Irishness,its conservatismand its Protestantism.Respectfulas he
was of Ireland's heroic Celtic past, he described pre-PlantationIrelandas in a
state of total anarchywhich requiredthe impositionof law and order,necessarily
from the outside.
Association with Ireland'sheroic, warriorCeltic past providedthe antiquarian
Celticists not only with a point of identificationwith Ireland,an Irishnessbased
on an emotional attachmentto the land, their birth right throughconquest, but
also with a model of a stratifiedaristocraticsociety, clearly mirroringthe super
ordinaterole of the Anglo-Irishascendancy.Ferguson's personal sense of place
was associated with his native east Ulster whose individuality and
endangeredness is a dominant theme in his poems and prose. His personal
"warrior-identification" seems to have been with "Fergus son of Roy," Fergus
MacRoy, who he favouredover Ciichullain--the hound of Ulster-as a literary
subject(0 Ddiill1993).
The focus on pagan Irelandside-steppedthe contentiousissue of Catholicism
which representeda formidableobstacle to the Ascendancy's identificationwith
Ireland.In Ferguson'sworkit is apparentthatthereis a role for the native Irishin
his version of the Irish nation, but not as equal partners,they were at worst,
primitive in their ungovernablepassions, at best, excitable and imaginative,but
either way incapable of self-government. In Ferguson's view little genuine
contact was permissibleuntil they had abandonedthatwhich most sustainedtheir
sense of separateidentity,theirCatholicism(Ferguson1834c:448).
CatholicversusProtestantantiquarians:R6isin Dubh
The debate aroundthe aisling song R6isin Dubh provides an example of one
skirmish in "the battle of two civilisations". The Gaelic song, metaphorically
identifyingIrelandwith a woman,was composed in the seventeenthcentury,one
of many poems employing this literary device. James Hardimanpublished a
translationwith notes, in his Irish minstrelsy,or bardic temainsoflreland (1831),
a collection of Gaelic poems and songs with translations.Hardimaninterpreted
the love poem as a political allegory of Ireland awaiting the help Red Hugh
O'Donnellwas seeking on the continent:
There'swine....fromtheRoyalPope,
upontheoceangreen;
andSpanishale shallgiveyouhope,
myDarkRosaleen!
my ownRosaleen!
and one popularIrish language centre in Belfast had such a scene permanently
paintedon the wall behindthe stage.
Irish music, dance and song were involved in maintainingboundariesas well
as in a battle for legitimacy, seeking at most full Irish independence,at least,
parity of esteem. These battles were of course fought on grounds other than
cultural. Over time, as a consequence of coercive legislation, reprisal policies
against the entire Catholic community, sectarian practice in relation to the
franchise,jobs and housing,and workplaceexpulsions,resistancewas worndown
and IrishCatholicculturein Belfast becameghettoised.
Evans, like Ferguson in the previous century, and like Robin Morton, his
contemporarywithin the field of folk music, is concernedto characteriseUlster,
in the process distinguishingit from its significantother. Evans, like Ferguson,
transcendsIreland'smodem politically and religiously sensitive historicperiod,
arrivingat the physicallocationfor the enactmentof Ferguson'sepic narrativesin
orderto tracethe originsof difference.
He also sharesFerguson's focus on the isolation of Ulster. The protohistoric,
legendary Black Pig's Dyke, which was a series of protective earthworks
providing a defence for the kingdom of Ulster, epitomises the point that
differences between north and the south are not the consequence of the
seventeenth-centuryplantation,betweencoloniserand colonised. However, other
ancient differences suggested by Evans have an unnervinglyReformationring
aboutthem, for distinguishableamong the religious beliefs of megalithicIreland,
he claims, is a puritanic earth-worshipping northern region, eschewing
iconography,and a more artisticflamboyantsun-worshippingsouth (1973: 72).
The stereotypesare reminiscentof Morton's"economic"as opposed to "ornate"
styles of singing.
Ulster's distinctive identity is manifested in the sleeve notes to David
Hammond's beautiful BBC album, Ulster'sflowery vale (1968), which is sub-
titled "traditionalsongs and music of the Northof Ireland".Its locationwithin an
Irish tradition,and within a broaderBritishIsles-wide, Irish, Scots, and English
tradition,is affirmed.The sleeve cover includes a brief note on the Ulster Folk
Museum, one of whose exhibits was the subject of the front cover. It was a
painting of a sturdy,spacious, well kept, indeed "Protestantlooking"--to use a
local turn of phrase--thatchedcottage. No small, one-roomedcottage, this is the
house of a weaver, a categoryof colonist which distinguishedthe northfrom the
south and which laid the basis for industrialdevelopment in the North. If the
Ulster folk revival had any interestin peasantroots, it was morelikely to be in the
industrious,"economical"domestic-based,ruralweavers, than in the "little old
mud cabins"of the impoverishedwest of Ireland.
Epilogue
1968 saw the developmentof the Civil RightsCampaignas a mass movementin
the northof Ireland;some of the young people involved in the folk revival turned
their energies in that direction. However events overtook the possibilities of
peaceful non-sectarianprotest, and Irelandwas once more engulfed in a war
situation. The emerging republicannationalistmovement expressed its anger,
sorrow,aspirations,and increasingresistance,in the traditionalmode of political
balladry.FromBelfast and otheraffectedareas,songs pouredforthinto the street
and into the clubs and pubs. A whole nationalistrepertoiredating back as far as
the 1798 rebellion became availableto those unfamiliarwith it. New songs were
writtendaily, abouteach news-worthyincident.The composerswere often local
people, more or less musicallytrained.Local groupssprangup to performsongs
and the local recording studio producedrecordings of those same people and
groups.Performancevenues was frequentlydominatedby floor-singers.
One of the more resonantsongs of the early 1970s, Four Green Fields, was a
song personifying Ireland as an old woman with the four provinces under her
care--one province,Ulster, was still in bondage.In an epoch-markingalbumalso
entitled "Four Green Fields", the local, Falls Road-based group, The Flying
Column (a reference to a ruralguerrillamilitary formationused in the War of
Independence),used the song Four Green Fields as a surroundfor an emotive
renderingof PadraicPearse's poem about "MotherIreland",Mise Eire, which
was musicallybackedby none otherthanR6isinDubh, played on the mandolin.
Conclusion
I could not have writtenthis article other than in retrospect.It is interestingto
reflect on how I might have writtenhad I done fieldwork during the early folk
revival in Belfast. It is extremely unlikely that I would have thought to
contextualize the revival within the context of Irish rebel songs. It raises
importantquestionsabouthistoricalperspective.My field researchwas, however,
on the 1970s. I studiedthe songs of The Troubles,which initially appalledme, in
terms of the aestheticI had learnedas a keen and puristCatholic folk enthusiast.
My research uncovered, for me, their significance in the lives of people. The
songs had a social heritage and a history, and they were part of an orally
transmittedtradition.
In this paperI have suggestedthatthe limitedparametersof the academically
defined term "folk song" mirroredand complemented the limited forms of
communication available to religiously mixed groups of people in Northern
Ireland.Both were intent on avoidingdifficult issues relating to Irish nationalist
history and politics. This convergence in the broaderhistorical context of the
1960s in Ireland, and in the Western world, allowed for a halcyon period of
fruitfulmusicalinteraction.
However, the revival was enteringthe domain of an older nationalistmusical
culture.It could not be innocentof the politics of identityin NorthernIrelandand,
whetherconsciously or not, took on a significantrole in relationto the emergence
of a new concernwith Protestantidentity.In manyrespectsthe attemptsto define
this identitymirrordebates of the previous century.Ultimatelythe coloniser still
must seek a non-essentialist, place-oriented version of Irishness, and indeed
Ulsterness.The Troubleshave witnessedan impressiverevival of Irishnationalist
culture.
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