Music in Ireland: 1916 and Beyond

22–24 April, 2016

DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama

in association with the

Society for Musicology in Ireland

and the

Research Foundation for Music in Ireland

Welcome from Dr Kerry Houston: Head of Academic Studies, Director of the Research Foundation for Music in Ireland.

I am delighted to welcome you to DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama to our conference this weekend. The Conservatory celebrated its 125th anniversary last year and we are planning to move to a new purpose-built campus in Grangegorman in 2018. The proceedings this weekend are part of the Research Foundation for Music in Ireland’s contribution to the Decade of Centenaries. The Research Foundation is developing a core of research resources which are freely available at www.musicresearch.ie and it is hoped that this conference will be a catalyst for further development of these resources. We welcome any suggestions you might have to expand what we have available on this website. The range, diversity and scope of the papers being presented over the next few days will provide fascinating new insights to the complexity of Irish music heritage and issues of Irish identity which are receiving new and fresh investigations at present. We are delighted at the response to the call for papers from a national and international arena which will be enhanced this weekend by a concert and an exhibition. I am very grateful to the members of the conference committee who have worked so hard to make this conference go smoothly and to the performers who have offered their time to perform in the concert. I thank Dr Orla McDonagh and all my colleagues at the Conservatory who have been so helpful in the arrangements. I am very pleased that Dr Lorraine Byrne Bodley, President of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, is with us and that we will be honouring one of the leading international experts on the music of Ireland, Dr Axel Klein, at the conference. I thank Dr Michael Mulvey, registrar of DIT, who has provided financial assistance and included the conference in DIT’s official 1916 programme, and to the Society for Musicology in Ireland which is hosting the wine reception. I look forward to meeting you in the formal and less formal parts of the weekend and hope that you have a very fruitful and enjoyable weekend.

Welcome from Dr Maria McHale: Chair of the Conference Committee

On behalf of the conference committee I would like to take this opportunity to offer a warm welcome to the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama and to the ‘Music in Ireland: 1916 and Beyond’ conference, held in association with the Society for Musicology in Ireland and the Research Foundation for Music in Ireland. The seeds for the conference were sown a year ago at a networking day held at the Conservatory that was funded by the Irish Research Council. Thanks are due to all the contributors to that event, several of whom are speaking this weekend, for both their ideas and enthusiasm for a conference in 2016. While many events have already been held to mark the centenary, this conference which, coincidentally, falls on the anniversary of the Easter Rising, presents an opportunity to examine its impact on Ireland’s musical culture. The range and breadth of papers that take us from the revolutionary years to the present is a testament to the amount of musicological scholarship in this area and sincere thanks are due to all speakers for their contributions. Many thanks also to Dr Orla McDonagh, Head of the Conservatory who has been very supportive towards this event and will open the conference, and to Professor Harry White, Chair of Music at University College Dublin, who will reflect on the findings of the conference in his closing address on Sunday afternoon.

In addition to the conference itself, there is an exhibition in the main foyer of the building of sheet music from c1916 which has been curated by Wanda Carin from the DIT Music and

Drama library collections. On Friday evening the staff and students of the Conservatory will present a concert that is reflective of many of the research interests here. Special thanks are due to Dr Clíona Doris for her organisation of the programme, to Dr Mark Fitzgerald for providing the transcriptions of the works by Frederick May, and to all the musicians who have kindly agreed to perform.

Finally, thank you for coming to the conference. I hope you will find this rich programme of papers both enjoyable and stimulating.

Acknowledgements

Conference Committee

Catherine FerrisKerry Houston

Stephen McCannMaria McHale

Aidan Thomson

Technical Support

Philip Cahill

Acknowledgements

Conor CaldwellWanda Carin

Claire ConnellClíona Doris

Mark FitzgeraldFiona HowardElspeth HayesSharon Hoefig

Varazdat KhachatryanCatherina Lemoni-O’Doherty

Julie MaiselOrla McDonaghMichael MulveyDavid O’Doherty

Paul RoeHarry White

Society for Musicology in IrelandStaff and Students, DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama

Porters, DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama

Venue information

All papers take place on the first floor of the Conservatory in room 1.02

Friday evening’s concert will take place in the theatre, just off the main foyer. The wine reception to follow will be held at the Grand Staircase, next to the theatre.

The conference dinner on Saturday will be held at Kafka, 236 Rathmines Road Lower.

Programme

Friday 22 April

Welcome: 10.45–11.00 a.m.

Session A: 11.00 a.m.–12.30 p.m. Chair: Harry White (University College Dublin)

Donal Fallon (University College Dublin)The Sound of Irish Labour: The Importance of the Fintan Lalor Pipe Band in Revolutionary DublinRuth Stanley (CIT Cork School of Music)A Reading of Music and Cultural Identity in The Leader (1915–16)Axel Klein (Independent Scholar)‘I believe in God, Beethoven and Patrick Pearse’—The Radicalisation of Carl Hardebeck

Lunch: 12.30–1.30 p.m.

Session B: 1.30–3.00 p.m.Chair: Mark Fitzgerald (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)

Joseph Kehoe (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)Easter 1926, Easter 1936, Easter 1946: The Long Gestation of the Radio Éireann Symphony OrchestraSiobhan O’Halloran (Ulster University)The Origins of the Ulster Orchestra: Institution and Ideology in a Fragmented SocietyMéabh Ní Fhuartháin (NUI Galway)Dance Halls, Parish Halls and Marquees: Popular and Shared Spaces for Music and Dance Practice

Tea/coffee break: 3.00–3.30 p.m.

Session C: 3.30–5.00 p.m.Chair: Ruth Stanley (CIT Cork School of Music)

Stephen Mc Cann (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)‘Take it down from the mast’: Music, Protest, and Legitimacy in the Early TroublesStephen Millar (Queen’s University Belfast)Who Fears To Speak of Easter Week? Music, Irish Republicanism, and Marginality J. Griffith Rollefson (University College Cork)‘Strangers in Paradise’: Performing Rebellion, Embodying Postcoloniality on the Emerald Isle

Concert: 5.30 p.m.Theatre, DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama

Frederick May (1911–1985) Idyll (c1930s)

David O’Doherty (violin), Catherina Lemoni-O’Doherty (piano)

Jane O’Leary (b. 1946) Within/Without (2000)

Paul Roe (clarinet)

Frederick May (1911–1985) North Labrador (1940)Drought (1931)April (c1934)

Elspeth Hayes (soprano), Varazdat Khachatryan (piano)

arr. John Buckley (b. 1951) Down by the Salley Gardens (2010)

Julie Maisel (flute), David O’Doherty (viola), Clíona Doris (harp)

Arnold Bax (1883–1953) Elegiac Trio (1916)

Julie Maisel (flute), David O’Doherty (viola), Clíona Doris (harp)

Wine Reception to follow the concert Grand Staircase, DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama

The wine reception, generously sponsored by the Society for Musicology in Ireland, will include the launch of the Digitized Irish Music Collection by Sharon Hoefig (DIT) and also the award of Corresponding Member of the Society for Musicology in Ireland to Dr Axel Klein from the Society’s President, Dr Lorraine Byrne Bodley.

Saturday 23 April

Session D: 10.00–11.30 a.m.Chair: David Mooney (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)

Maria Byrne (Maynooth University) The Policeman’s Baton: An Instrument of Peace?Kerry Houston (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama) Utterly Changed Times: Music at St Patrick’s and Christ Church Cathedrals in 1916Michael Murphy (Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick) ‘Some have come from a land beyond the wave’: Domestic and Foreign Perspectives on the ‘Soldier’s Song’

Tea/coffee break: 11.30 a.m.–12.00 p.m.

Session E: 12.00–1.30 p.m.Chair: Méabh Ní Fhuartháin (NUI Galway)

Rónán Galvin (Irish Traditional Music Archive)‘Rocking the Cradle’ 1916: The Contribution of Patrick Weston Joyce and Breandán Breathnach to the Study of Irish Traditional Music and SongConor Caldwell (Queen’s University Belfast)‘...though so very much corrupted as to be quite barbarous’: Attitudes towards Irish Music in the Gaelic RevivalAdrian Scahill (Maynooth University)Revival and Revolution: A Transitional Period in the Ensemble Playing of Irish Traditional Music

Lunch: 1.30–2.30 p.m.

Session F: 2.30–4.00 p.m.Chair: Michael Murphy (Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick)

Maria McHale (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)Voices of the Rising: Musical Culture in Revolutionary DublinRichard Parfitt (Linacre College, Oxford)‘Living Still in Spite of Fire, Dungeon and Sword’: Music and Irish Political Prisoners, 1916–1921Christina Bashford (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)‘If I practice I can make a fair show’: The Power of the Violin in the Ballykinlar Internment Camp during the Anglo-Irish War (1919–21)

Tea/coffee break: 4.00–4.30 p.m.

Session G: 4.30–6.00 p.m.Chair: Aidan Thomson (Queen’s University Belfast)

Teresa O’Donnell (Independent Scholar)Marking the Fiftieth Anniversary of the 1916 Rising through MusicAngela Goff (Waterford Institute of Technology) Táin Bó Cúailnge: The Cultural Significance of an Ancient Saga within the Repertoire of Irish Contemporary MusicMark Fitzgerald (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)After 1916—Composers and Politics, Composition and Politics, Musicology and Politics

Conference dinner: 6.30 p.m., Kafka Restaurant, Rathmines.

Sunday 24 April

Session H: 10.00–11.30 a.m.Chair: Kerry Houston (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)

Mary Louise O’Donnell (Independent Scholar)Guns, Gaels and Gondoliers: Music in Dublin in 1916Ita Beausang (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)Irish Composers and 1916David Mooney (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)‘And the show goes on…’: The 1916 Feis Ceoil

Tea/coffee break: 11.30 a.m.–12.00 p.m.

Session I: 12.00–1.30 p.m.Chair: Christina Bashford (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

Cosimo Colazzo (Conservatorio di musica ‘F.A. Bonporti’ di Trento) in collaboration with Giuliana Adamo (Trinity College, Dublin)An Italian Composer during the Irish Independence Process: Michele EspositoAidan Thomson (Queen’s University Belfast)Bax’s In Memoriam: Memory, Martyrdom and Modalities of IrishnessIan Maxwell (University of Cambridge)Moeran in Ireland, 1917–1918 and 1935

Closing Comments: 1.30–2.00 p.m.Harry White (University College Dublin)

Abstracts

Session A

Donal Fallon (University College Dublin)The sound of Irish Labour: The Importance of the Fintan Lalor Pipe Band in Revolutionary Dublin

The Fintan Lalor Pipe Band, established in 1912, was closely aligned with the radical trade union movement in the revolutionary period, and ultimately came to be seen by the public and the authorities as the band of the Irish Citizen Army. Frank Robbins, an ICA participant in the 1916 rebellion who later penned a memoir of the workers’ militia, remembered that the band was ‘part and parcel of the Irish Citizen Army’. The band was named in honour of James Fintan Lalor (1807–49), a Young Irelander and an important political influence on James Connolly.

Thomas O’Donoghue, a participant in the band who later fought in the Easter Rising, recalled that ‘when arms became more plentiful, I insisted that the band itself should be armed with revolvers and, of course, ammunition’. This was owing to the manner in which the band was frequently targeted by the Dublin Metropolitan Police, sometimes losing instruments to assaults. In the War of Independence, the band lost much of its instruments as a result of a Black and Tan raid on Liberty Hall, the home of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union.

While there is a growing historiography on the Irish Citizen Army and socialist participation in the revolutionary period, the Fintan Lalor Pipe Band has largely been awarded little more than passing reference. This paper will draw on Bureau of Military History Witness Statements, Dublin Metropolitan Police intelligence files, and other primary source materials, such as The Workers’ Republic newspaper, to highlight the role of Fintan Lalor Pipe Band members in the Easter Rising and surrounding events, as well as demonstrating the importance of music to the radical left.

Ruth Stanley (CIT Cork School of Music)A Reading of Music and Cultural Identity in The Leader (1915–16)

Promoting an essentially Gaelic and Catholic Irish identity, The Leader provides a fascinating record of views on cultural nationalism in Ireland during the early twentieth century. In particular, a series of seventy-four articles by Annie Patterson (1868–1934) disseminated her patriotic aspirations for Irish music. Written between 1915 and 1916, these articles promoted the cause of ‘Musical Home Rule’, for which an ‘Irish Musical Revival’ would generate more Irish operas, cantatas, orchestral and other instrumental works. Such native compositions, Patterson argued, could be used in educational and examination settings in order to counter ‘alien musical training’. Patterson also proposed an ‘Irish Composers’ Union’ on racial grounds, which would ensure that Irish music was infused with the ‘spirit of the Gael’. Patterson rejected modernism in music, however, and advocated compositions that were inspired by Irish melody and simple harmonies. Such a utopian vision was typical of the ethos of The Leader, which campaigned for Irish sovereignty in all areas of society. Rejection

of imported goods, both material and cultural, informed many of the articles and reader correspondence. British imports were particularly reviled, including cosmetics, fashion trends and smoking. So, too, were cinema, minstrel troupes, music hall and revues disparaged as ‘a hideous feast of vulgarity bordering on indecency’. It was all the more vexing that packed audiences seemed to enjoy them. Notwithstanding the conservative and often xenophobic tenor of cultural revivalist debates in The Leader, there remains a subtle complexity to the cultural identities that emerge from their authors.

Axel Klein (Independent Scholar)‘I believe in God, Beethoven and Patrick Pearse’—The Radicalisation of Carl Hardebeck

Carl Gilbert Hardebeck (1869–1945), a London-born musician of German and Welsh parentage, is a typical example of the immigrant who became ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves’. From his arrival in Belfast in 1893, his numerous Feis Ceoil participations as composer, accompanist and adjudicator, and his periods in Cork (1919–23) and Dublin (1932–45), meant that he increasingly identified with the Irish question, particularly during the years leading up to the Easter Rising and to independence. This paper traces the steps that led to this transformation, which include some personal contact with Patrick Pearse and Michael Collins. Apart from his political convictions, the process of radicalisation in his Irishness also became apparent in a unique approach to the arrangement of Irish traditional music in (small) forms of art music. Yet, for all that he achieved, Seán O’Boyle’s confident projection (1948) that ‘the Ireland that is true to herself will always be true to Hardebeck’ did not come true. A hundred years after the Easter Rising, Hardebeck is no longer present in the Irish musical mind.

Session B

Joseph Kehoe (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)Easter 1926, Easter 1936, Easter 1946: The Long Gestation of the Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra

Radio Éireann, the Dublin-based Irish public broadcasting station, began operating in 1926, and from the beginning music was a major component of its programmes. The original ‘Station Orchestra’, in reality a small string ensemble plus piano, was in place by Easter 1926, and it provided a wide range of music for the station. This group was incrementally increased over the following decades, and it eventually evolved into the Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra, which was established in 1948.

From the perspectives afforded by the first three decennial anniversaries of the Easter Rising, this paper explores the process whereby, over a period of twenty-two years, a small all-purpose instrumental group evolved into an ensemble of symphonic proportions and composition, devoted exclusively to art music; how decisions of civil servants housed in the reconstructed GPO and in Government Buildings in Merrion Street affected this evolution; how, after the Second World War, the desire that Ireland should take its place among the broadcasting nations of the world became a crucial factor in the creation of the orchestra; and how a French composer and conductor was involved in its establishment.

Siobhan O’Halloran (Ulster University)The Origins of the Ulster Orchestra: Institution and Ideology in a Fragmented Society

The events of the Easter Rising and the subsequent establishment of the border generated intense political and cultural tensions in Ireland, particularly in the newly separated six counties of the North. These six counties—Northern Ireland or ‘Ulster’—lacked cultural definition, and any sense of national identity was highly contested. It is in this historical context that the Ulster Orchestra was established in Belfast in 1966, just prior to the social fragmentation of Northern Ireland, known as ‘The Troubles’. It was established by members of the relatively new Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI), and relied on funding from Westminster, which came through channels in the Ministry of Finance. This paper portrays the context of the Orchestra’s foundation, considering the contentious nature of political and cultural power in Northern Ireland during the late 1960s, which was compounded by the troubles in the decades that followed. Establishing the means and motivation behind the Orchestra’s foundation bears light on a cultural ideology that dominated the fractured societies of the North, which in turn either dominated or denied aspects of national identity for those living there.

Primary sources for this research include letters sent between the President of the ACNI and the Director of Music for the ACNI between 1964 and 1969. These reveal personal motivations behind their urgent drive to secure a full-time, professional orchestra in the province which could play works from the romantic repertoire. Drawing on existing evidence of the Unionist government’s contemporary objective to portray the image of a peaceful, ‘modern’ and ‘civilised’ society in Northern Ireland, this paper evaluates the function and effectiveness of the Orchestra in this process. Finally, issues will be framed within the context of other research in the field that explores the orchestra as a powerful tool of ideology, whether it is used to socially exclusive or inclusive ends.

Méabh Ní Fhuartháin (NUI Galway)Dance Halls, Parish Halls and Marquees: Popular and Shared Spaces for Music and Dance Practice

The second decade of the twentieth century in Ireland’s history is well documented as a revolutionary period in political and cultural terms. Cultural commentary often focuses on an essentialist and essentialising view of ‘Irishness’ (witness Douglas Hyde’s ‘Irish-Ireland’ aspirations). However, the cultural reality of 1916 in Ireland was the inexorable advent of the ‘popular’, a space in which most music-making came to be performed and received. Tied as music-making is to dance, this paper will trace the development of public dance spaces in the early decades of the century in Ireland, charting the shift away from domestic contexts and towards the emergence of the ultimate expression of ‘popular’. Consequences for music practice will be examined, and in doing so, the paper proposes that built and pop-up public dance spaces were inclusive spaces which frequently did not discriminate between music genres, and instead allowed for the osmotic edges of music (and dance) categorisation. Finally, this paper will situate the development of public dance spaces in Ireland in international comparison, and examine responses at a state level of administration to these new sites of popular cultural engagement.

Session C

Stephen Mc Cann (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)‘Take it down from the mast’: Music, Protest, and Legitimacy in the Early Troubles

In his introduction to Songs of Freedom, James Connolly proffers a work whose purpose is ‘encouragement to… share in the upbuilding of the revolutionary movement’. Such endeavours are encountered throughout the history of political balladry in Ireland and, whether in publications such as The Spirit of the Nation or as modern albums, constitute a central component in the proliferation of both nationalist and republican politics and culture.During ‘The Troubles’, efficacy as pedagogical or proselytising aid would frequently position political song as integral to the articulation of contemporary conflict within the context of global anti-imperialist struggles and Ireland’s ‘unbroken’ revolutionary tradition. As a result such works helped provide much of the symbolic potency in narratives of continuity and legitimacy prominent in ideological contests among competing strands of republicanism and against the state.

Whilst there has been concerted study of republicanism in this period, much less attention has been afforded to the music of the conflict. Focusing upon the early years of the Troubles, and deriving inspiration from Connolly’s assertion that ‘no revolutionary movement is complete without its poetic expression’, this paper will explore the relationship between a resurgent republican movement and political folk song.

Stephen Millar (Queen’s University Belfast)Who Fears To Speak of Easter Week? Music, Irish Republicanism, and Marginality

It perhaps goes without saying that one is unlikely to hear references to ‘Northern Ireland’ in Irish republican songs, and that any mention of the ‘Free State’ is likely to be a pejorative. Irish republicans reject the partitioning of the island, in 1922, pointing to the Easter Rising as the foundational moment of a yet-to-be-realised thirty-two county Irish Republic. As such, the approach to the 2016 centenary has highlighted the awkward and contradictory relationship between the current Irish political elite and the event they seek to commemorate. By contrast, Irish republicans have been sidelined by the official 1916 commemorations, creating their own series of events, reifying the official and imagined Irelands experienced by those living on the island. Drawing on three years of long-term fieldwork, this paper explores how, in the absence of a thirty-two county state, Irish republicans have used music to construct an imagined Irish nation through an emotional appeal to public memory, a distinct pantheon of heroes, and the commemoration of important republican events.

J. Griffith Rollefson (University College Cork)‘Strangers in Paradise’: Performing Rebellion, Embodying Postcoloniality on the Emerald Isle

This paper focuses on the ways that hip hop has provided a potent platform for engagements with Ireland’s revolutionary histories. It begins by laying out the ways that Irish traditional

music has been interpolated into hip hop practice via ‘knowledge of self’ ideologies. I examine live performances of MCs accompanying themselves on tin whistle and bodhrán (the Irish frame drum) and look at the recent development of so-called ‘trad-tablism,’ which fuses Irish traditional music and DJ turntablism. I then turn to Good Vibe Society’s video ‘December 11th,’ which uses historical narratives, period film footage, and localised poetic dialectics to recall, frame, and embody the loss resulting from the 1920 burning of Cork City ‘during a rampage by the infamous terrorist organisation known as the Black and Tans during the occupation of Ireland by the British Empire.’

Notably, these hip hop artists construct their postcolonial political critique though the swing and swag of hip hop and the melodic rhetorical resonances of ‘Stranger in Paradise’—the hit song from the exoticising 1953 Broadway musical Kismet [Arabic: destiny, fate]. In a telling conclusion to the music video, archival footage of Muhammed Ali shows the boxer and anti-colonial activist expressing a solidarity: ‘this is one thing I love and I admire about the Irish people… you’ve been underdogs for years, hundreds of years, people dominatin’ ya and rulin’ ya. You can identify with this freedom struggle’. In constructing their cultural politics by articulating local and national revolutionary histories to the globalised rebellion of hip hop and the imperialist orientalism of Kismet, these hip hop artists construct a usable identity and a potent politics out of an array of histories. They construct an internationalist identity perched on moral high ground while simultaneously engaging national subjectivities and militating against occupation of their ‘paradise’, the Emerald Isle.

Session D

Maria Byrne (Maynooth University) The Policeman’s Baton: An Instrument of Peace?

Until recently the Royal Irish Constabulary band had been largely forgotten as a result of the negative reputation earned by the RIC during the War of Independence. This predominantly Catholic nationalist police force was tainted by its association with the Black and Tans and found no place in the new identity of the Irish Free State.

Despite its negative reputation the RIC had made positive contributions to Irish society with such enlightened endeavours as the establishment of a band in 1861. By following the musical contribution of the RIC band to Irish public life, from its inception to its dissolution in 1922, it is possible to journey with its middle-class audience through a time of intense political gestation. Performing contemporary popular music and military band standards, the band also played non-partisan Irish music, often giving performances of exclusively Irish content. These performances epitomised the intense search during this period for a trans-partisan national identity which could be shared by all Irish people across their various divides.

This paper examines primarily the work of the RIC band during its formative years under the directorship of Harry Hardy, and in doing so seeks to gain equilibrium in a narrative which has either lauded or loathed this colonial police force. This approach adds to current research into Irish policing which focuses on the RIC’s positive contribution to Irish society in the second half of the nineteenth century and not simply on the difficult years following 1916.

Questions of commemoration, celebration, reinterpretation and recovery are central to the debate surrounding this decade of significant dates in Irish history. By considering these questions in the context of music, this paper seeks to discover if the repositioning of the RIC band in Irish music history can contribute to the process of reconciliation and add a progressive vision to the wider discourse of peace.

Kerry Houston (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama) Utterly Changed Times: Music at St Patrick’s and Christ Church Cathedrals in 1916

Music at the two Anglican cathedrals in Dublin (Christ Church Cathedral and Saint Patrick’s Cathedral) followed a pattern similar to their English counterparts since the Reformation and earlier. However, circumstances in Ireland began to change during the nineteenth century; and while there was not much noticeable alteration to patterns of worship on a daily basis at the cathedrals, signals of a ground shift in their positions were appearing. The passing of the Church Temporalities (Ireland) Act in 1833 suppressed several Irish bishoprics, and the Irish Church Act (1870) dissolved the union of the Church of England and the Church of Ireland, thereby disestablishing the Irish Church. Many ancient endowments which supported the musical establishments at the cathedrals were withdrawn at this time.

Uncertainty increased both with the advent of the Home Rule movement and with the outbreak of World War One. While the cathedrals had managed to continue choral services despite the reduced financial resources of the late-nineteenth century, the war put an enormous strain on those attempting to maintain ancient traditions at Saint Patrick’s and Christ Church. Furthermore, many of the cathedrals’ singers offered themselves for war service thereby depleting choir resources. The Easter Rising of 1916 came at a time when the cathedrals were already struggling to maintain daily choral services: the rebellion further undermined confidence in the future.

This paper analyses how the cathedrals and their musical establishments reacted to these changing political, social and economic realities in general, and to the circumstances of 1916 in particular. Documents from the cathedrals’ archives will be used to show how the authorities reacted to the circumstances of both the Rising and the First World War, and how the effect of these events continued to determine developments at the cathedrals in the early years of independence following the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922.

Michael Murphy (Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick) ‘Some have come from a land beyond the wave’: Domestic and Foreign Perspectives on the ‘Soldier’s Song’

In 1928 the Executive Council of the Free State directed Fritz Brase to compose a suitable arrangement of the ‘Soldier’s Song’ for official use in Ireland and abroad. This was but one of many instrumental arrangements of the ‘Soldier’s Song’, which was originally published for voice and piano in Ireland and America in 1916. This paper will investigate the circumstances surrounding various arrangements of the ‘Soldier’s Song’ before and after its adoption as the national anthem in 1926, including wind band arrangements by Percy Beechfield-Carver, Brase and his successors in the Irish army, and orchestral arrangements

by Victor Herbert, Thomas Beecham, J. F. Larchet and Brian Boydell. It also found its way into a work by Arnold Bax. While each of these large-scale arrangements, along with a version for uilleann pipes by Leo Rowsome, can be regarded as a secondary text predicated on an originary one, each harbours its own political and cultural meaning. It is remarkable that so many arrangements were by composers who were either English (Beechfield Carver, Beecham, Bax), German (Brase) or American-Irish (Herbert), and whose decision to arrange the ‘Soldier’s Song’ was either a professional or personal one. While Brase’s connection with Ireland is well known, these other composers bring a new perspective to the history of Ireland’s national anthem, the words and music of which have prompted much controversy over the past century. Taking into consideration that Anglo-Irish relations have never been better, these arrangements by foreign composers suggest that the national anthem was never as problematic for English sensibilities, at least, as it was for those living in Ireland.

Session E

Rónán Galvin (Irish Traditional Music Archive)‘Rocking the Cradle’ 1916: The Contribution of Patrick Weston Joyce and Breandán Breathnach to the Study of Irish Traditional Music and Song

The decade following 1912 was a period of upheaval and rebellion in Ireland that ultimately led to the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922. This period also witnessed both the birth and passing of many musicians, singers, scholars, collectors and commentators who shaped the world of traditional music and song in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Ireland. It could be argued that Irish cultural life and society changed more in the twentieth century than in the previous four hundred years, from the Flight of the Earls in 1607 and subsequent plantations.

Patrick Weston Joyce (1827–1914) and Breandán Breathnach (1912–1985) are regarded as two seminal figures in the history of Irish traditional music in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Ireland. Both collectors of traditional song, music and dance, they shared a common purpose to document and preserve this tradition and make it available to the wider public. The foundation of the Irish Traditional Music Archive (ITMA) was the Breandán Breathnach Collection. In 2014 the ITMA presented P.W. Joyce’s published and unpublished collection through an online microsite to mark the centenary of his death.

This presentation will explore the significant contribution of both P.W. Joyce and Breandán Breathnach to Irish cultural life using ITMA’s extensive multimedia resources.

Conor Caldwell (Queen’s University Belfast)‘...though so very much corrupted as to be quite barbarous’: Attitudes towards Irish Music in the Gaelic Revival

This paper examines attitudes to Irish traditional music in the years leading up to the Easter Rising, taking account of the differing ways in which both urban and rural communities explored notions of Irishness and identity through their local music traditions. The bustling, urban centre of Dublin is contrasted with the peripheral parish of Glencolmchille in south-

west Donegal, both of which were subject to their own complex and layered system of class, political power and musical development. While the Dublin elite used language, through the medium of ballads, art song and poetry, to express their discontent with the political status ‘quo, they often scorned rural practices of dance and music as unfashionable and ‘barbarous'. While the Gaelic League’s attempted ban on so-called ‘foreign’ dances paved the way for the popularisation of ceili dancing throughout much of the country, it did not succeed in routing the highlands, barn dances and mazurkas, which were popular in western, Gaelic-speaking regions. Through examination of the collections of George Petrie, P.W. Joyce and others, this paper attempts to highlight the attitudes towards rural music-making of the urban communities who were at the vanguard of political protest.

Adrian Scahill (Maynooth University)Revival and Revolution: A Transitional Period in the Ensemble Playing of Irish Traditional Music

The decades of the revolutionary years witnessed the development of ensemble playing as a component of events held by Gaelic revival associations. At a time when the idea of traditional music was itself was beginning to crystallise, and spanning a period during which the Gaelic League became first politicised, with a dilution of its focus, and then re-emerged as a cultural organisation, musicians from diverse backgrounds came together to provide music for both solo and social dancing at ceilidhs and similar events. It is tempting to consider the emergence of a new, specifically Irish ensemble as paralleling the foundation of the new Irish state, although there is little contemporaneous evidence that this was recognised as something particularly novel or transformative. Instead, this evidence suggests that the early ad-hoc and pre-ceilidh band ensembles were thought of in functional terms, valued for what they offered the dancer, and as undifferentiated from other dance ensembles. In more general terms, the paper argues that the ceilidh was transformed from being an affinity- (and identity-) reinforcing event for revivalists, to a space which was situated in, and more integrated with local communities. This paper aims to examine the relationship of the ceilidh with, these different forms of communities, and also its relationship to the communities of musicians who performed at such events: was there a change in the type of musician supplying music, and did this reflect (or initiate) changes in style (either real or perceived)? In doing so, the paper will also reconsider issues concerning the social composition of Gaelic Revival organisations, positing that the ceilidh (and its music) was a space within which the different socio-cultural identities of this period could be reconciled.

Session F

Maria McHale (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)Voices of the Rising: Musical Culture in Revolutionary Dublin

The consensus narrative of the Easter Rising is that, after a failed rebellion, the execution of the Rising’s leaders marked a sea change in attitudes, characterised by a more strident nationalism that had been burgeoning in various cultural organisations since the turn of the century. This more militant strand of nationalism found its way quickly into the musical culture of the period. Indeed, a plethora of songs published during in and around 1916 reveals how quickly certain tropes were adopted. Furthermore, many of the musical responses to the Rising were penned by Volunteers themselves. Indeed, Constance Markievicz, Gerard Crofts

(a well-known singer turned Volunteer) and his brother Joseph Crofts collaborated on several such songs.

A number of these were performed at benefit concerts for the dependents of the dead and injured, indicating a consolidation of the historical importance of the Rising. However, they were by no means the only benefit concerts of the period as other events were organised by the Red Cross to support those involved in the Great War. As such, the musical life of Dublin suggests a contested space between groups with different political priorities and concerns.Using the songs themselves, concert programmes and reviews, and drawing on witness statements from the Bureau of Military History, this paper examines some of the musical responses to the Rising against the broader background of Dublin’s musical culture in this formative period of Ireland’s history.

Richard Parfitt (Linacre College, Oxford)‘Living Still in Spite of Fire, Dungeon and Sword’: Music and Irish Political Prisoners, 1916–1921

The 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin created more than three and half thousand political prisoners, who were detained in jails and camps in Ireland and Britain. Between 1919 and 1921, furthermore, the IRA, whose membership was drawn from many of those imprisoned after the Rising, waged a guerrilla war against the police and British army, creating further political prisoners. The political movements from which these prisoners emerged were steeped in musical culture. Songbooks and ballad sheets featured regularly in propaganda, while bands playing political songs were a staple of the rallies, parades and social activities of revolutionary organisations. The songs employed were drawn from and inspired by the vast collection of nationalist ballads, Irish folk songs, hymns and comic music hall songs that made up the Irish political soundscape. In the prisons and camps in which so many of the revolutionary movement would spend much of this period, music was no less prominent. Prisoners and internees held concerts, wrote songs, and printed those songs in camp newspapers, while their allies and advocates outside championed their cause and satirised their plight in music that they produced themselves. In this paper, I propose to use a selection of memoirs, including statements given by former revolutionaries to the Bureau of Military History, along with contemporary documents such as letters and diaries, in conjunction with songbooks and newspapers, to analyse and understand the role of music among Irish political prisoners during the revolutionary period. Overall, I aim to demonstrate that musical performances were predominantly the product of a more liberal prison regime, a means of providing entertainment and maintaining morale, but that the extent to which it provided a means of resistance is largely a construct of retrospective narratives.

Christina Bashford (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)‘If I practice I can make a fair show’: The Power of the Violin in the Ballykinlar Internment Camp during the Anglo-Irish War (1919–21)

The role and significance of music in internment camps has attracted much attention in recent years, with studies of detention during World War II providing a multi-grained picture of the socio-creative impact camps had on celebrated composers, performers, and writers (Gilbert, 2005; Garnham, 2012) while other research has dealt with music’s function in camps more generally (Brinson, 2004). My paper adds to this second strand of exploration by focusing on the camp at Ballykinlar, which detained around 2000 republican sympathisers during the Anglo-Irish War. Musical activities there included classes in elementary violin, led by

prisoners Martin Walton and Frank O’Higgins. With permission from the British authorities, Walton imported cheap violins from Boosey and Hawkes in London and gathered students. This paper draws on untapped archives, including correspondence and images, to consider the social, cultural, and political function that the violin classes served in this exceedingly harsh domain. Acknowledging the many historiographical challenges that work of this nature presents, I contextualise the classes within the camp-wide educational culture that aimed to avert boredom and encourage mental stimulation. I assess the extent to which the violin classes functioned as a means for prisoners to seek consolation or express resistance, and I suggest that their primary role was to offer psychological coping mechanisms and thus aid survival. The administration’s toleration of the violinists owed much, I argue, to neo-Victorian views of education as a force for moral improvement, paternalism, and social control. At the same time, the idea of the violin seems to have had a powerful hold on prisoners, due as much to the instrument’s cultural-historical symbolism in Ireland as to the contemporary craze for classical violin-playing. (When the camp was disbanded Walton was surprised at how fast the excess instruments sold: ‘I was soon selling the bloody things by the hundred’.)

Session G

Teresa O’Donnell (Independent Scholar)Marking the Fiftieth Anniversary of the 1916 Rising through Music

The Golden Jubilee of the 1916 Rising sought to reinvent the message of the events of Easter Week by honouring the past but also looking to the future. An Taoiseach, Seán Lemass, was keen to present Ireland as a modern country and the 1966 commemorations required ‘a delicate negotiation between tradition and change’. Music featured prominently in the commemorative programme: in addition to concerts and the commissioning of new works, music was used to accompany pageants and at military parades. In this paper, I will examine a number of official and unofficial musical events organised to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Rising on the island of Ireland and in Britain. I will focus on the varied styles of music performed at concerts/events from Brian Boydell’s specially commissioned cantata, A Terrible Beauty is Born to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 (‘Eroica’) and Seán Ó Riada’s musical accompaniment to An Tine Bheo. This paper will also focus on the conflicting reactions to the various musical commemorations, in particular one concert booked by the Republican National Commemoration Committee at the Ulster Hall which was cancelled to avoid a breach of the peace. Captain Terence O’Neill voiced his opposition to 1916 commemorations in the North, declaring ‘that any action against the Government, Constitution or people of Northern Ireland would be met with inflexible firmness’.

Angela Goff (Waterford Institute of Technology) Táin Bó Cúailnge: The Cultural Significance of an Ancient Saga within the Repertoire of Irish Contemporary Music

Cú Chulainn is one of the most legendary figures to emerge from ancient Irish saga literature (600–1200). His heroic exploits feature in several of the interrelated tales that make up the Táin, excerpts of which can be found in the eleventh-century Book of Dun Cow, the twelfth-

century Book of Leinster and the fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century Yellow Book of Lecan. This literary corpus has had a definite socio-cultural influence across the creative arts as the tales reflect several social and cultural perspectives. Political references include Oliver Sheppard’s bronze masterpiece The Death of Cuchulainn (1911) which was later appropriated by Éamon de Valera in 1935 and installed in the window of the General Post Office, Dublin, to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising. The geographic locale of the Táin is embraced by the internationally acclaimed Irish sculptor, John Behan, who installed welded steel figures of Cú Chulainn in the apt location of Dundalk town (2012). Thomas Kinsella’s successful translation of the Táin (1969) includes ink brush drawings by Louis le Brocquy, and the Irish folk punk group, The Pogues, perform ‘The Sickbed of Cuchulainn’. Five Irish composers, James Wilson, Aloys Fleischmann, Deirdre Gribbin, Eibhlís Farrell and John Kinsella have written works relating to the exploits of Cú Chulainn. Despite the composers creating a link to an established tradition, there is a dearth of musicological literature pertaining to the specific Táin-inspired works. The aim of this paper is to encourage interdisciplinary discussion by creating an awareness of the cultural value of two Táin-inspired works which reference Kinsella’s translation and focus on the complete story of the saga. An exploration of what motivated the composers to engage with this subject-matter, and their attitudinal responses to the saga, reveals cultural influences, notably with regard constructions of national identity.

Mark Fitzgerald (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)After 1916—Composers and Politics, Composition and Politics, Musicology and Politics

This paper examines two interlinked areas, Irish composition and Irish musicology, and their problematic relationship with the political history of this country. From the sphere of composition the paper isolates a number of compositions relating to the events in 1916. First, there are the pieces commissioned to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Rising, most notably Brian Boydell’s A Terrible Beauty is Born. In addition, there are the compositions commissioned from Seóirse Bodley, John Buckley, Aloys Fleischmann and John Kinsella to mark the centenary of Padhraic Pearse’s birth. The ways in which these composers approached the act of commemoration is examined and then juxtaposed with the way in which musicologists have dealt with the ideas of republicanism and nationalism when constructing a narrative of Irish composition.

Session H

Mary Louise O’Donnell (Independent Scholar)Guns, Gaels and Gondoliers: Music in Dublin in 1916

At 8 p.m. on 24th April (Easter Monday) 1916 the D’Oyly Carte Principal Repertory Opera Company began a performance of The Gondoliers by W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan at the Gaiety Theatre, South King Street, Dublin. It was the first performance of a twelve-night run which also included Iolanthe, The Mikado, The Pirates of Penzance, Patience and The Yeoman of the Guard. On the north side of the city, the cellist Clyde Twelvetrees had just finished performing between acts at the Bohemian Picture Theatre, in Phibsborough. A few miles away at locations such as the G.P.O, Boland’s Mills, and the Four Courts, an armed insurrection was raging, led by members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Irish

Volunteers and Cumann na mBan. This paper attempts to provide a picture of musical and theatrical life in Dublin in the run-up to and the immediate aftermath of the Easter Rising of 1916. Using relevant materials from the Holloway Playbills Collection house at the National Library of Ireland and contemporary Dublin newspapers, I survey the artists and touring companies which performed in Dublin from January to June 1916 and assess whether or not the events surrounding the Rising influenced the nature of their performances or their choice of repertoire/programming.

Ita Beausang (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)Irish Composers and 1916

Do revolutions and political upheaval act as catalysts for change in the arts? In Albert Einstein’s opinion, ‘The revolution introduced me to art and in turn art introduced me to the revolution’. The influence of conflict is reflected from Caravaggio to Picasso, Tolstoy to Victor Hugo, and Shostakovich to Benjamin Britten. In Ireland the painters Seán Keating, Jack B. Yeats and Sir John Lavery took their inspiration from the events surrounding 1916; the powerful writings of W.B. Yeats and Seán O’Casey conveyed the passion and the tragedy of the leaders’ sacrifices and the effects that they had on people’s lives at the time. In considering the Rising and its aftermath through the lens of music what conclusions can we reach about the impact of the Rebellion and subsequent events on Irish composers? This paper will consider the question through relevant works by composers in 1916 and after.

David Mooney (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)‘And the show goes on…’: The 1916 Feis Ceoil

The Feis Ceoil was scheduled to take place in Dublin city centre during the second week of May 1916. In the turmoil that followed the Easter Rising, rather than cancel the event outright, in the true spirit of self-preservation the Feis committee decided to postpone the annual festival of competitions until July of the same year.

The Feis Ceoil was still in a state of relative infancy, having commenced life in 1894. It had already garnered a central place in the musical life of Dublin and had begun to build a reputation for the rigorous standards of its competitions both in classical music and Irish art music. As is the case today, this organisation was operated by a group of volunteer music-lovers whose aim was to provide a competitive platform for musicians, with the additional benefit of international standards of adjudication.

In 1916 the Feis was a six-day event which culminated with a Prizewinners’ Concert. Today, it is a sixteen-day event with a nationally recognised title sponsor and over a century of rich musical and cultural history.

This paper will place the role of the Feis in context as a competitive event and will use the 1916 festival as a snapshot of the ‘national’ music competition in terms of content and participation. Through an examination of the documentation and records of the festival, the paper will explore the planning of the event, the dilemma of postponement, the eventual rescheduled festival of competitions and the aftermath. The paper will also attempt to ascertain the impact of the postponement, if any.

Session I

Cosimo Colazzo (Conservatorio di musica ‘F.A. Bonporti’ di Trento) in collaboration with Giuliana Adamo (Trinity College, Dublin)An Italian Composer during the Irish Independence Process: Michele Esposito

The Easter Rising of 1916 followed a long process of maturation of Irish nationalism, which involved a cultural dimension. During the course of the nineteenth century, and even more at the beginning of the twentieth, Irish artists felt the need to cultivate the relationship with their roots. This took place in different fields, notably theatre and literature (Yeats), but also in music. It is therefore important to consider the case of Michele Esposito (1855–1929), an Italian composer transplanted to Ireland. In his new homeland, and from a nationalist perspective, Esposito promoted important initiatives among which was the founding of: the Dublin Orchestral Society, which aimed to establish a permanent orchestra in the city as well as the publishing house, C.E. Music Publishers Co. All of this was done with the intention of improving national and independent cultural production.

A transformation can be found in his creative work, with an increased attention on Irish folk music, which he uses in some of his works, for example the Irish Symphony (1902) and the Irish Suite (1915). His creative work moves away from classical forms that reference the great German tradition to more impressionistic sound paintings, which are characterised by repetition and a taste for sound and ornamentation. This paper aims to analyse the transformation in Esposito’s expressive language, taking into consideration the Irish social, cultural and intellectual context of a time devoted to the search for independence.

Aidan Thomson (Queen’s University Belfast)Bax’s In Memoriam: Memory, Martyrdom and Modalities of Irishness

Composed in 1916, Bax’s orchestral piece In Memoriam (originally In Memoriam, Pádraig Pearse) commemorates the recently executed leader of the Easter Rising in Dublin, the event that eventually led to the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922. Although the work was not performed in Bax’s lifetime—it received its premiere only in 1998—it is a significant milestone in its composer’s career, as I explain in this paper. Firstly, it is the most important musical manifestation of the nationalist-republican ideology that Bax acquired through his acquaintanceship with several leading members of the Irish Literary Revival. Secondly, through his adoption of the trope of the nineteenth-century funeral march, Bax emphasises a central aspect of that ideology, namely martyrdom, that Pearse had consciously encouraged, whether in his own literary work or in public statements prior to the Rising. Thirdly, through quoting the rebel song, ‘Who Fears to Speak of Ninety Eight?’, Bax stresses the continuity of the Rising with earlier Irish uprisings, and implicitly assumes Pearse into a pantheon of dead Irish heroes. Finally, the musical narrative of In Memoriam serves to mythologise the events of the Rising, a process that occurred in (and through) many literary works over the next two decades, most famously Yeats’s poem, Easter 1916, but also Bax’s own poem, In Memoriam My Friend Patrick H. Pearse (Ruler of Ireland for One Week), which this paper considers. In

Memoriam should thus be considered, albeit necessarily retrospectively, an important musical construction of modern Irish identity.

Ian Maxwell (University of Cambridge)Moeran in Ireland, 1917–1918 and 1935

Although the composer E.J. Moeran was half Irish, from his father’s ancestry, there is no record of his having visited Ireland until he was posted there as a member of a regiment sent to quell increasing nationalist fervour during the period that preceded the Sinn Féin victory in the 1918 General Election.

Moeran arrived in Ireland, probably in mid-January 1918, and spent the following nine months at various postings around the country. He was still recovering from the injury he had suffered in France the previous May, and was thus assigned to light, if any, duties. It is clear from the evidence available that he occupied some of his non-military time by travelling around the country befriending the local population and listening to and recording folksong in rural areas. It is also evident that he composed a considerable amount of music, at least some of which survived his frequent clear-outs and losses due to carelessness. During this time, it is clear that he developed some sympathy for the nationalist cause, and perhaps saw the preservation of folk culture as a contribution to this.

Moeran returned to Ireland in May 1919 and remained there for three months. After travelling back to London in September, he stayed away from Ireland for at least the next sixteen years. However, from 1936 onwards, Moeran had a significant influence on music in Ireland, and during the fourteen years until his death, spent much of his time there.

This paper examines the effect of Moeran’s various connections with Ireland by presenting evidence that his motivations and impact on the country’s musical life may not yet be fully understood. A number of conclusions will be advanced that challenge the conventional view of Moeran as a minor contributor to twentieth-century Irish music.