So what makes it Irish? Or rather, what is particularly Irish about Irish music? In eight well-organized, neatly subdivided chapters, John O’Flynn draws together a diverse set of analytical tools with which to answer some of these basic questions. A timely contribution to the fields of ethnomusicology, musicology, folklore, Irish and European studies, The Irishness of Irish Music offers the reader unique insight into the relations between production and consumption practices and larger socio-cultural discourses of authenticity and national identity formation in the Irish Republic.

O’Flynn’s important study succeeds among a burgeoning field of ethnomusicological monographs on Irish music. Within the last two years major works from Helen O’Shea (2008), Fintan Vallely (2008), and Sean Williams (2010) (to name but a few) have considerably expanded the breadth and depth of Irish music studies. Coupled with the recent establishment of a special interest group in Irish music sponsored by the Society for Ethnomusicology, it seems that the scholarly study of Irish music (particularly in North America) has firmly taken root in the academy. In this regard, O’Flynn offers an important contribution to this literature, precisely in his detailed analysis of consumption practices and performance reception among Irish audiences.

O’Flynn’s introductory chapter outlines an interpretive framework for understanding Irish music based on a review of the relevant literature. While such an in-depth literature review is rare in contemporary ethnomusicology, it does provide the uninitiated reader with a solid foundation for engaging O’Flynn’s later discussions of music consumption and aesthetics. In chapter 2 O’Flynn presents a brief history of Irish music, tracing its development from the folk-inspired “ballad boom” of the 1960s to the World Beat productions of the early 2000s. Following this, O’Flynn provides some of his most important insights in chapter 3, offering a detailed statistical analysis of Irish musical production, distribution, and consumption practices. In chapter 4 O’Flynn attempts an ethnographic examination of three archetypal sites (and genres) of Irish music performance: classical, traditional, and popular. Here O’Flynn mediates his earlier statistical analysis with qualitative interview data grounded in everyday musical practices and beliefs. The various themes and issues that arise in this segment of the book serve as a springboard for further introspection in the remainder of the book. In chapter 5 O’Flynn critically interrogates the influence of traditional musics in the national imaginary, following this with an exploration of alternative conceptions of national identity in chapter 6. In the final two chapters of the book O’Flynn folds his quantitative and qualitative data together into a larger discussion of Irish authenticity, first by looking specifically into the analysis of musical sound and meaning, and later examining the dialectical relationships at the heart of Irish identity.

O’Flynn nestles his discussion of Irish national identity within a field of inquiry that wavers between essentialist and anti-essentialist tendencies. Too often the field of Irish cultural studies has been dominated by the analytical tendency to see Irish identity as a given, stable, and coherent mode of consciousness. Recent academic scholarship has begun to critically engage these essentialist tropes, arguing for a more fluid understanding of Irish identity as a social construction. While O’Flynn recognizes the importance of anti-essentialist approaches, he reminds the reader that this framework is not necessarily replicated in the everyday practices and interpretations of his interlocutors. Instead, O’Flynn attempts to juxtapose established theories of Irishness with the everyday assumptions and beliefs of those who produce and consume Irish music. To do this he seeks out the opinions of producers and consumers alike, and interprets these diverse “perspectives in relation to the range of cultural practices and products from which they arise” (18). This approach successfully balances everyday assertions of Irishness within larger discourses of authenticity in Irish music and performance.

Since O’Flynn takes on such an important and timely project, there are several aspects of his theoretical and methodological approach that might require further explanation. While we are warned against essentializing Irish identity around celebratory tropes, O’Flynn sees little problem in deploying rigid (essentialist) genre formations (classical, traditional, and popular) to advance his argument. These unproblematized categories of musical practice prove to be blunt instruments for understanding the heterogeneous, processual, and contingent aspects of music performance and identity formation in Ireland. Rather, in examining parallel discourses of authenticity and national identity formation these very concepts might have been a more appropriate site for analysis.

Likewise, it is curious that in a book on Irish identity, O’Flynn circumscribes his analysis so narrowly to indigenous Irish citizens of the Republic, avoiding the entanglements of Northern Ireland or the millions who claim Irish ancestry in diaspora. In his attempt to examine musical practices through which Irish identity is articulated, O’Flynn strategically restricts the discussion to those whom he defines unproblematically as “Irish.” It would seem that a discussion of Irish identity among those for whom such a marker is not presumed, but rather must be continually asserted in dialogic relations with a non-Irish “other,” would have led to a more nuanced understanding of the myriad ways in which Irishness is constituted, performed, and consumed.

Despite these minor qualifications, throughout his analysis O’Flynn demonstrates a command of the relevant literature on Irish music, greatly expanding our understanding of often under-acknowledged aspects of musical practice in Ireland.

WORKS CITED

O’Shea, Helen. The Making of Irish Traditional Music. Cork: Cork University Press, 2008.

Vallely, Fintan. Traditional Music and Identity in Northern Ireland. Cork: Cork University Press, 2008.

Williams, Sean. Focus: Irish Traditional Music. New York: Routledge Press, 2010.

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[Review length: 912 words • Review posted on March 30, 2010]