The Globalization of Irish Traditional Song Performance by Susan H. Motherway (review)

Susan H. Motherway’s monograph surveys commandingly the complex network of Irish traditional song performance (ITSP) in local and global contexts. A combination of case studies from different genres of song and the insightful application of globalization theory provides a framework within which more fully to understand the phenomenon of ITSP, which the author categorizes according to five performance genres: Irish traditional singing in the local vernacular; Anglo-Irish song; ballad singing; country ’n’ Irish; and contemporary hybrid forms. Indeed, the concept of hybridity is central to the thesis that globalizing processes are significant factors affecting musical change in this context. The tension between hybrid and non-hybrid—often perceived to be ‘authentic’—forms is what drives the enquiry into not just synchronous practices, but diachronic developments as well.

Like many titles in the Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series, this book adopts a varied range of methodologies from popular music studies and ethnomusicology. While not based on any substantive fieldwork, it engages with globalization and post-colonial and cultural theory, in addition to incorporating a breadth of music-analytical approaches. Such an eclectic approach is well suited to the music under examination, including examples of folk music, traditional music, popular music, and art music.

The emphasis in the title on performance introduces yet another perspective to the study, which adopts a wide understanding of performing practice, focusing less on in-depth historical-musicological usage and more on all-encompassing usage covering musical, social, and cultural practices, especially in relation to the culture industry. Similarly, discussion of ‘tradition’ highlights the importance of transmission and defines ‘traditional’ songs in opposition to ‘newly composed [folk] songs’ (p. 23). The distinction between traditional and folk songs places an emphasis on a connection with the past, maintained in many cases by the non-literate transmission of traditional songs through successive generations of performers. In defining Irish traditional song, Motherway explains how sean-nós satisfies an essentialist definition, literally an ‘old style’ of singing in Irish, which maligns alternative practices of traditional song in Ireland and its diaspora. By adopting ‘a model of traditional song practice that defines centre and periphery’ (p. 32), the author mediates between the various levels of ‘authenticity’ from sean-nós at the centre, through English-language and vernacular traditional song, to world-music practices that adapt ‘traditional repertoire to popular ensemble playing’ (p. 33).

This study is wide ranging both in terms of the genres it investigates and in its extensive time-frame. While the focus is on contemporary practice, there is an impressive breadth of historical enquiry in tracing the roots of those practices, in some instances back to the twelfth century. In addition to contextualizing present-day practices, the historical (or diachronic) perspective also affords the opportunity to highlight the presence of globalizing processes throughout Irish history, from the Anglo- Norman conquest of 1169, to the colonization of Ireland by the English in the seventeenth century and Irish emigration to North America from the eighteenth century onwards.

Six of the eight chapters focus on a ‘divide’ in ITSP, whether temporal, linguistic, ethnic, geographical, political, or institutional. This organizing principle is a vestige of the Ph.D. thesis upon which the monograph is based, the full title of which is ‘Mediating the Divide: The Globalization of Irish Traditional Song Performance’ (University of Limerick, 2009). The decision not to include the surtitle slightly obscures the rationale behind the chapter titles, but as the thesis is cited on the front inside cover sleeve this does not present a significant obstacle in understanding. The main ‘divide’ between local and global which is central to Motherway’s thesis is enhanced by various others, reflecting the multifaceted nature of ITSP as a whole.

Chapter 1, ‘Defining the Local within the Global’, defines ITSP variously in respect to its repertory, performance style, performance practice, and its cultural and social contexts, in...