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159 11. Sean-Nós Singing: IDEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON A NATIVE ART Róisín Nic Dhonncha It is quite true to say that no people in the world following a profession or trade could be got together who know as little about their business as the average singer. (Hardebeck, 1916: 10) Rather than approaching sean-nós singing ontologically or trying to address the difficulty of its definition, it may be more beneficial to discuss it in its functional and temporal contexts and, in so doing, provide an insight into how it was perceived throughout the last century and into the new millennium . Interpretations of sean-nós singing in the past have been shaped by aspects which have been identified in many cases by people outside of the tradition, whereas indigenously led discussions of this musical genre have largely escaped public and scholarly attention. An alternative approach, influenced by local, indigenous criteria, may provide us with a more useful perspective and contribute to the displacement of some of the clichés surrounding sean-nós singing. Sean-nós singing has for the past century been strongly associated with the festival known as An tOireachtas, and, more importantly, is rather often perceived in the context of competitions.1 The treatment of sean-nós loosely parallels the growth of this festival, which was established in 1897 as a language and literary festival during the cultural revival. The connection in the public mind between the festival and sean-nós2 ensured that the latter would be associated exclusively with the Irish language and the Gaeltacht areas for many years to follow.3 It is important to note, however, that An tOireachtas was not a music festival but one devoted to promoting the Irish language and its literature . In this context, it is easy to understand how a referential art form such as singing in the Irish language would be of great value to a movement which had linguistic distinctiveness as one of its aims. Edward Martyn stated in 1904 regarding the agenda of An tOireachtas: ‘it does not profess to make music its chief aim, which is the revival of the Irish language; and it only uses that much 160 Róisín Nic Dhonncha Irish music which it knows how to scrape together, genuine or corrupt as the case may be, to help on the great main object of the language’ (Martyn, 1904: 8). Comments such as this suggest that the fate of the Irish vocal music tradition was being placed under the care of a language movement. There was a priority attached to the preservation of the language, given the role of language as the strongest marker of cultural specificity, an understanding stemming from the European Romantic movement of the second half of the eighteenth century, and in turn influencing Irish cultural nationalists such as Thomas Davis and Douglas Hyde. This sentiment was further developed during the cultural revival at the turn of the twentieth century, where native cultural practices understood to be specific to Ireland were used in an attempt to construct a symbolic idea of identity. Despite the fact that sean-nós singing was being advocated as a worthy national art by An tOireachtas in the opening years of the twentieth century, feelings about this type of music were mixed. Ornamentation of varying degrees is seen as an integral and defining feature of all regional styles of sean-nós, so much so that the basic melody line is at times difficult to detect, as may be the case with some older Connemara singers for example. Other features, such as the free rhythm, the seemingly unrefined voice and, of course, the Irish language, with which many people were unfamiliar, meant it was perceived unfavourably by some during the early twentieth century, when the topic was much discussed by music scholars and academics. This sense of the ‘alien’ quality of sean-nós was conveyed in articles which appeared in newspapers and journals in the early 1900s, such as the following in An Claidheamh Soluis, which was at the time edited by Patrick Pearse: ‘There is really a large body of the public who do not for a moment wish to sneer at traditional singing though it be unpleasant to their ears. To these people some kind of an authoritative statement from those who know would be a godsend’ (An Claidheamh Soluis, 2 September 1905: 7). The following extract from The Leader in 1912 expresses...

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