One of the constant themes running through Irish history is the importance of music, song, dance and literature for encouraging and forging a national identity. Yet, despite the theme being often ignored, the story of 20th-century Ireland is laced through with many of the soundtracks of music that defined, reflected and shaped our destiny. Music as an intrinsic part of our identity was recognised by Thomas Moore, Patrick McCall, Percy French, but in particular, Thomas Davis.
Davis is buried in Dublin’s Mount Jerome cemetery. Not too far from his grave is that of Edward Bunting (d.1843), who achieved fame as a musician and folk music collector. He influenced Thomas Moore, the Bard of Erin (Oft in the Stilly Night, The Minstrel Boy and The Last Rose of Summer), who in turn influenced Percy French (The Mountains of Mourne, Phil the Fluter’s Ball and Come Back Paddy Reilly). In the 20th century many of these songs were kept alive by the Irish and internationally renowned tenor, Count John McCormack, and later still by Frank Patterson. The Waltons-sponsored programme on Radio Éireann ran with the line: ‘If you do sing a song, sing an Irish song.’
This particularly Irish musical strain had roots dating back centuries to the early harpists, flute and uilleann pipe players. The latter were renowned for the ‘Great Irish War Pipes’, played as the Irish went into battle and guaranteed to encourage the enemy to flee. Despite the Elizabethan edict in 1571 that harpists were to be hung and their instruments burnt, the tradition survived and the blind harpist and one of the great Irish bards, Turlough O’Carolan (1670-1738), composed numerous poems, songs and lyrics, including 214 pieces of instrumental harp music. Among the favourites are O’Carolan’s Concerto. He also composed The Lament for Owen Roe O’Neill, which the Young Irelander, Thomas Davis, used for a similar lament in the 19th century.
Patrick Pearse regarded Thomas Davis as the father and evangelist of Irish nationalism, guardian of the nation’s soul and one who helped transform national consciousness. He was like Thomas Moore to some extent – recognising that music helped define us as a people. In Davis’s case, it found expression in The Nation newspaper. In one poem, Who Fears to Speak of ‘98, he rekindled the memory and sentiment of Wolfe Tone and 1798, with the aim of renewing and rebuilding the national fibre and fostering once more Irish nationhood.
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Davis understood that culture sustained nationality and that historical legitimacy would be indifferent without the storytelling power of songs and music. Through these lenses (whether of suffering, love, emigration, rebellion) the history of Ireland over the centuries would be seen and music would be called upon to invigorate the wider nationalist cause of political independence. This understanding ensured the popularity of his heroic songs of the dispossessed, particularly A Nation Once Again and The West’s Awake, with their emphasis on hope and courage.
During the 1798 commemorations, PJ McCall took up the Davis baton and gave us Boolavogue, Kelly of Killane and The Boys of Wexford. He also wrote the Pulse of the Bards, Songs of Erin and Irish Fireside Songs.
A few years later, Patrick Pearse wrote a poem – Mise Éire – ‘I am Ireland’. A trumpet call to the nation before the 1916 Rising.
The fledgling Irish Free State also recognised the pivotal role its cultural heritage and particularly music, would play in consolidating the nation.
In this respect, the national anthem Amhrán na bhFiann (The Soldier’s Song), 2RN (forerunner to Radio Éireann) and the Army Number 1 Band (using Moore’s Melodies for source and character of the national idiom), were regarded as crucial nation-building tools. Cinemas, theatres and dance halls played the national anthem at the end of the evening’s entertainment, a tradition that lasted until 1972,
Likewise, the pioneering work of Alan Lomax, Séamus Ennis and the Irish Folklore Commission, Garech Browne and Claddagh Records achieved much in collecting and preserving our musical heritage. Individuals such as harpist Mary O’Hara (Songs of Erin), Seán Ó'Riada’s Ceoltóirí Chualann, as well as céili bands such as the Tulla and Kilfenora, fostered the unique Irish musical tradition and brought it to a wider audience. Their efforts spawned younger musicians such as Altan, the Bothy Band, Clannad, Planxty, the Chieftains, Dé Danann and Stockton’s Wing.
It was said of them that they ‘ensured we had apples in the winter’. Some of the band members – Eleanor McEvoy, Mary Black, Dolores Keane, Sharon Shannon, Frances Black and Maura O’Connell – went on to produce one of the best-selling Irish albums of all time, A Woman’s Heart (1992).
The Dubliners folk group (despite having Seven Drunken Nights banned from Radio Éireann) led a veritable musical stampede and were joined by The Fureys, Wolfe Tones and many more to give an Irish flavour to the international ballad boom. These were also trailblazers that kept the tradition alive through the lean and good times.
Simultaneously, from the late 1950s to the early 1970s Ireland witnessed a showband mania that swept across the country with ballrooms springing up in every townland in the country. At one time there were nearly 800 showbands traversing the country and it was said that such was their popularity, playing life-wire music, it may be argued they dragged Ireland into the 20th century. Some of the luminaries included Dickie Rock (‘spit on me Dickie’), Brendan Bowyer (The Huckle Buck) and Big Tom (Four Roads to Glenamaddy).
A member of one such showband was Rory Gallagher, who, reflecting the new mood, opted for a rock band (Taste). Other followed the new international music trends including Van Morrison (Them), Brush Shiels (Skid Row), Horslips, Thin Lizzy, The Blades, Aslan and eventually U2.
Meanwhile, the showband era was edged out by disco fever, with ‘Europe’s No.1 Nightclub’, The Zhivago, leading the pack in the early 1970s. According to an advert it was ‘Where Love Stories Begin’. ‘But ended in the Rotunda’, according to a Dublin observer.
Maurice Curtis is the author of Independent Ireland 1922–1992: Raised on Songs and Stories (Orpen Press, July 2022)
