In October 2020 Routledge published, Made in Ireland: Studies in Popular Music, this is part of Routledge’s global popular music series which, as they put it, is ‘devoted to popular music largely unknown to Anglo-American readers’. This collection of essays, through a wide range of historical and critical vantage points, explores popular music on the island of Ireland.
In the previous episode, which was part one of this two part feature on Made In Ireland, I spoke to two of the editorial team, Áine Mangaoang and John O’Flynn. In that episode we took a birds-eye view of this collection, talking through the different thematic sections and discussing the various essays. For this episode, the second and final part, I wanted to dig a little deeper into just one of those essays and, while there are some really great essays in the collection, Tríona Ní Shíocháin’s contribution really stood out to me as having a particular importance and it is an extended conversation with Tríona that follows in this episode. Tríona’s essay in Made in Ireland, entitled “The Politics of Sound: Modernity and Post-Colonial Identity in Irish-Language Popular Song” was particularly compelling because it was addressing popular music trí mheán na Gaeilge, through the medium of the Irish language and as such this is really an essential contribution to the collection, not least in terms of locating Irish culture and identity in the Anglo-American, English language dominated world of popular music.
Tríona Ní Shíocháin