Letters: Rossa Ó Snodaigh's article on 'Nua Traditional'

Dear Editor, In your July/August issue your correspondent, Róisin Loughrey, chastises me as a 'child who refuses to share his markers' and criticises me for 'rejecting [Rossa] Ó Snodaigh's system of classification' and 'failure...

Dear Editor,

In your July/August issue your correspondent, Róisin Loughrey, chastises me as a ‘child who refuses to share his markers’ and criticises me for ‘rejecting [Rossa] Ó Snodaigh’s system of classification’ and ‘failure to grasp what lies at the heart of this piece.’

Had she simply misunderstood my response to Rossa Ó Snodaigh’s article I would not have replied. As she seems not even to appreciate the import of the original piece I feel bound to do so. I was probably too verbose – I usually am – so I will try to reveal my concerns as briefly as possible this time.

The music which we recognise as Irish traditional music (ITM), if considered in its purely musical nature, can be seen to shade off in various directions into various other musics – via the harp music into classical music, for instance, or via street song into the music-hall genre, or via the northern or the Wexford styles into Scottish or English folksong. This indeterminate zone is at the periphery. It is where outside influences touched or penetrated ITM. It is where new influences will be felt and where innovation will most probably be tried. Nevertheless it is not the whole of ITM; it is as minor a part of it as are the shores that surround our island.

This is all pretty much accepted – that there is a distinct core of ITM which can be distinguished from other musics but which, musically, differs from other musics only stylistically and in content. That ‘only’ may seem redundant. How else can one music differ from another if not in style or content? Well, there is a way, and this is the whole point. ITM differs fundamentally from all other musics to be found in Ireland in one crucial, unique way, and it is this that sets it apart and which renders it incomprehensible to many. This attribute is simply the way it has been practised. ITM has been, and still is for the most part, non-commercial. It is a commonage, not a commodity; consensus, not consumption.

To someone involved in ITM, this is as clear as the day; to someone whose only contact with the music is the purchase of product, it is meaningless. Nevertheless, in case there is such a one reading this, I will try to explain. It is this feature of ITM that confers such enormous benefits on those who practise it. It is fulfilling for the practitioner on a lot of different levels, artistic, social, emotional, etc., in a way that the mere purchase of a commodity can not be, and these all interact with and reinforce each other. (Think of the pleasure to be gained from eating your own home-baked bread or home-grown vegetables, and then multiply that by 1,000.) This package of benefits may be enjoyed in any country that has a living traditional music. It is dependant in part on the quality (style and content) of the music, but to an equal or even greater extent by the experience of custodianship/ connectedness/ camaraderie which is to be gained by working a shared resource in common with one’s peers.

To repeat for the last time, ITM is unique not because of its style or content; it shares features of these with other musics. It is unique because of the way it is held. My criticism of Rossa Ó Snodaigh’s article was not based on fear of innovation; there is innovation in ITM all the time (although it is invisible to those who think innovation means becoming more like music that they already like). My criticism was based on the fact that the article assumed ITM to be just another commercial genre, to be treated in the same way as any other product, exploited when fashionable and eventually used up and discarded. The first act in the process of appropriation is the act of naming. Anyone who doesn’t understand this should go and see Brian Friel’s Translations, or simply read Genesis. If those who presently hold ITM are to be told they may no longer use their own choice of words to describe what they do, then that is an act of appropriation, and I spoke up and, I thought, identified it as such. There is indeed need for discussion and debate about the music and its future, but we will get nowhere if one side of the debate arrogates to itself the arbitrary power to re-define the words we use.

Terry Moylan
Dublin City

Published on 1 September 2001

Terry Moylan is a researcher and archivist with Na Píobairí Uilleann. He is the author of The Age of Revolution in the Irish Song Tradition 1776-1815.

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