The Price of Happiness?
Barra Ó Séaghdha
Has too much been sacrificed by Irish traditional music in embracing the values of modern Ireland? Barra Ó Séaghdha takes some snapshots of a country with 'societal amnesia' and wonders where all the slow airs have gone...
Over the last fifty years, Ireland’s relationship with the past has shifted again and again – and with it, traditional music and our attitudes to it. The very term traditional music suggests at first sight an unchanging cultural form, but we know that – like our politics, our landscape, our practice of religion – the instrumentation, the social function and the dissemination of traditional music were always evolving, at greater or lesser speed.
In the opinion of many, a great deal has been achieved in recent decades and prospects are bright: the market for the music is international, and not at all confined to Ireland and its emigrant communities; there is a high level of professionalism; institutional and educational structures are being developed; the music – and not just the semi-classicised version – has moved into the concert halls; it is presented with respect, and sometimes with imagination, on television and in other media. In a fascinating and almost imperial dual movement, the Irish have claimed and brought back home swathes of music from elsewhere, while sending their own cargoes down the river of sound to the sea of world music. Is all well with the world and has a way been found of marrying the tempo and values of Celtic Tiger and post-Celtic Tiger Ireland with the values and historical memory of core areas of...
