06: Music in Post Famine Ireland

• Different performance contexts

• Emergence of amateur musicians and decline of professional musicians

•        Wider range of instruments (new instruments suitable for domestic setting, and cheaper to purchase)

•        Change in dance practices

—> from quadrilles to set dancing

•        Socio-economic changes linked to changes in traditional music practices at the time

• decrease in labour needed —> loss of work songs

• Disappearance of clachán, labourer and the increase in single-owner farms

• Improvements in houses

• Disappearance of patronage and support for travelling musicians

• Change in influence of Catholic church

• Different performance contexts (eg. Houses)

• Rise of `amateur´musicians and decline in professional musicians

• Changes to the dancing tradition

  —>Away from quadrilles and to set dancing and the introduction ofnew modern dances

• New instruments

• thin whistle

• Accordion, melodion, concertina

  —>from aristocratic instruments for amusement to domestic and communal instruments for the “poor”

  —> mostly played by females

  
  

• Quadrille

  • =root of set dancing

  • dance with 5 figures

  • taught by dancing masters

• away from Quadrille —> set dancing and modern traditions

- = groups/clusters of farms communally working strips of land

-   Rich cultural life of songs, stories, dances and music

-   Purpose of music: work and entertainment

-   Art was mostly related to agricultural cycle, the religious calendar or pre-christian rituals

-   Clacháns were destinations for travelling musicians and dancing masters

Edward Cronin

Banish Misfortune

Jig

Fiddle

c. 1900

• Patterns (Patron Day)

• Prinkum

• Maypole dances

• crossroad dances

• Hurlings

• worksongs

• on clachán

• since 1800

• mostly Uillean pipes

• contexts: houses, races, markets, weddings

• Repertoire: dance tunes, non-dance-tunes, art music

• playing style: variations

• divergence in Irish and English (ruling) class

• conflict and sectarianism

• change in culture

  —>decline of elite musical culture

  —>changes in dance practices