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The sea is beautiful and alluring, but it is also dangerous and
deadly. Above all, it is unknowable and untameable. Storytelling
offered our ancestors a means to understand and interact with the
natural world, and in time these stories coalesced into the
mythological systems of the world. And the ocean features in every
mythological system in history. To reflect and explore this, Gerry
Smyth has gathered together myths and folktales from cultures
around the world – Native American, Caribbean, Polynesian,
Persian, Indian, Scandinavian and European. Just as these stories
have been passed down through generations, he brings his own
narrative interpretation with additional discussion on their
meaning. Stories are divided into seven sections: Origin Stories;
Gods and Humans; Voyages; Lost Places, Imagined Spaces; Weather and
Nature; Down to the Sea in Ships; Fabulous Beasts; and embellished
with illustrations from the wide-ranging collections of the
Library.
Passed down in the oral tradition and sung traditionally as working
songs, sea shanties tell the human stories of life at sea: hard
graft, battling the elements, the loss of ships or pining for a
lady on shore. Its pages decorated with hand-drawn or wood-cut
illustrations from celebrated artist Jonny Hannah, Sailor Song
addresses the current modern revival of sea shanties, and seeks to
celebrate and to explore the historical, musical and social history
of the traditional sea song through 40 beautiful, mournful,
haunting and uplifting shanties. Acclaimed shanty devotee Gerry
Smyth presents the background to each one alongside musical
notation. The lyrics are elaborated with explanations of
terminology, context including historical facts and accounts of
life at sea, and the characters, both fictional and non-fictional,
that appear in the songs from the great age of sail to the last
days of square-rig. Where appropriate, a direct digital link is
made to a shanty recording in the British Library Sound Archive.
Music and Irish Identity represents the latest stage in a life-long
project for Gerry Smyth, focusing here on the ways in which music
engages with particular aspects of Irish identity. The nature of
popular music and the Irish identity it supposedly articulates have
both undergone profound change in recent years: the first as a
result of technological and wider industrial changes in the
organisation and dissemination of music as seen, for example, with
digital platforms such as YouTube, Spotify and iTunes. A second
factor has been Ireland's spectacular fall from economic grace
after the demise of the "Celtic Tiger", and the ensuing crisis of
national identity. Smyth argues that if, as the stereotypical
association would have it, the Irish have always been a musical
race, then that association needs re-examination in the light of
developments in relation to both cultural practice and political
identity. This book contributes to that process through a series of
related case studies that are both scholarly and accessible. Some
of the principal ideas broached in the text include the
(re-)establishment of music as a key object of Irish cultural
studies; the theoretical limitations of traditional musicology; the
development of new methodologies specifically designed to address
the demands of Irish music in all its aspects; and the impact of
economic austerity on musical negotiations of Irish identity. The
book will be of seminal importance to all those interested in
popular music, cultural studies and the wider fate of Ireland in
the twenty-first century.
Music and Irish Identity represents the latest stage in a life-long
project for Gerry Smyth, focusing here on the ways in which music
engages with particular aspects of Irish identity. The nature of
popular music and the Irish identity it supposedly articulates have
both undergone profound change in recent years: the first as a
result of technological and wider industrial changes in the
organisation and dissemination of music as seen, for example, with
digital platforms such as YouTube, Spotify and iTunes. A second
factor has been Ireland's spectacular fall from economic grace
after the demise of the "Celtic Tiger", and the ensuing crisis of
national identity. Smyth argues that if, as the stereotypical
association would have it, the Irish have always been a musical
race, then that association needs re-examination in the light of
developments in relation to both cultural practice and political
identity. This book contributes to that process through a series of
related case studies that are both scholarly and accessible. Some
of the principal ideas broached in the text include the
(re-)establishment of music as a key object of Irish cultural
studies; the theoretical limitations of traditional musicology; the
development of new methodologies specifically designed to address
the demands of Irish music in all its aspects; and the impact of
economic austerity on musical negotiations of Irish identity. The
book will be of seminal importance to all those interested in
popular music, cultural studies and the wider fate of Ireland in
the twenty-first century.
This book argues that modern Irish history encompasses a
deep-seated fear of betrayal, and that this fear has been
especially prevalent since the revolutionary period at the outset
of the twentieth century. The author goes on to argue that the
novel is the literary form most apt for the exploration of betrayal
in its social, political and psychological dimensions. The
significance of this thesis comes into focus in terms of a number
of recent developments – most notably, the economic downturn (and
the political and civic betrayals implicated therein) and
revelations of the Catholic Church’s failure in its pastoral
mission. As many observers note, such developments have brought the
language of betrayal to the forefront of contemporary Irish life.
This book offers a powerful analysis of modern Irish history as
regarded from the perspective of some of its most incisive minds,
including James Joyce, Liam O’Flaherty, Elizabeth Bowen, Francis
Stuart, Eugene McCabe and Anne Enright. -- .
This book investigates the role of literary criticism in the
process of Irish decolonisation since the late eighteenth century,
with special emphasis on the 1950s. Drawing on the work of both
Irish and international commentators - including Edward Said, David
Lloyd, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Luke Gibbons - Gerry Smyth
seeks to reconfigure the established relations between literature
and criticism. Smyth then sets his analysis against a modular
theory of decolonisation based on a reading of Irish history from
the perspective of contemporary postcolonial and post-structural
theory. Engaging with debates in a number of current fields,
Decolonisation and Criticism challenges many assumptions and
practices of Irish literary history.
Recent developments in Irish literature are largely ignored in
existing critical texts on Irish culture. This is the first study
to make a detailed examination of the new novelists and themes
emerging in the genre, as well as covering the foundations of
contemporary Irish fiction. Gerry Smyth provides a broad overview
of the forms and theories that comprise the traditional Irish novel
and explores the ways in which modern writers challenge established
notions of Irish fiction. Focusing on the work of leading
contemporary Irish writers - including Roddy Doyle, Glenn
Patterson, Emma Donoghue and Patrick McCabe - Smyth employs
innovative techniques in his analysis, such as the relevance of
post-colonial theory to Irish literature, and the links between
literature and wider cultural and political developments. Also
included is a previously unpublished interview with Roddy Doyle.
Irish contemporary popular music has had remarkable international
success, but relatively little scholarly attention. Analysis of
cultural identity has been dominated by the literary canon, yet
music has been crucial in constructions and definitions of
Irishness since the late eighteenth century. This trail-blazing
book is the first cultural history of Irish rock music from the
1960s to the present. Using theoretical perspectives drawn from
cultural criticism and music studies, Gerry Smyth shows how Irish
rock music has engaged with issues of national identity at every
level, from music to performance to distribution and publicity. The
big names, such as Rory Gallagher, Van Morrison, U2, Thin Lizzy,
emerge in a new light, as they, together with less well-known
artists, like Northern Ireland bands, Ash and the Undertones, are
examined in terms of the economic, sociological and political
factors which conditioned their music. The book also looks at the
roots of Irish rock in the Show-band era, the influence of folk and
traditional music, and the legacy of punk. It looks at the
opportunities and challenges facing Irish Rock at a time of
increasing commercialisation and globalisation. It includes a
substantial discography.
Music and Sound in the Life and Literature of James Joyce: Joyces
Noyces offers a fresh perspective on the Irish writer James Joyce's
much-noted obsession with music. This book provides an overview of
a century-old critical tradition focused on Joyce and music, as
well as six in-depth case studies which revisit material from the
writer's career in the light of new and emerging theories.
Considering both Irish cultural history and the European art music
tradition, the book combines approaches from cultural musicology,
critical theory, sound studies and Irish studies. Chapters explore
Joyce's use of repetition, his response to literary Wagnerism, the
role and status of music in the aesthetic and political debates of
the fin de siecle, music and cultural nationalism, ubiquitous urban
sound and 'shanty aesthetics'. Gerry Smyth revitalizes Joyce's work
in relation to the 'noisy' world in which the author wrote (and his
audience read) his work.
Music and Sound in the Life and Literature of James Joyce: Joyces
Noyces offers a fresh perspective on the Irish writer James Joyce's
much-noted obsession with music. This book provides an overview of
a century-old critical tradition focused on Joyce and music, as
well as six in-depth case studies which revisit material from the
writer's career in the light of new and emerging theories.
Considering both Irish cultural history and the European art music
tradition, the book combines approaches from cultural musicology,
critical theory, sound studies and Irish studies. Chapters explore
Joyce's use of repetition, his response to literary Wagnerism, the
role and status of music in the aesthetic and political debates of
the fin de siecle, music and cultural nationalism, ubiquitous urban
sound and 'shanty aesthetics'. Gerry Smyth revitalizes Joyce's work
in relation to the 'noisy' world in which the author wrote (and his
audience read) his work.
This book reconstitutes the category of 'space' as a crucial
element within contemporary cultural, literary and historical
studies in Ireland. The study is based on the dual premise of an
explosion of interest in the category of space in modern cultural
criticism and social inquiry, and the consolidation of Irish
studies as a significant scholarly field across a number of
institutional and intellectual contexts. Besides a
methodological/theoretical introduction and extended case studies,
the book includes an auto-critical dimension which extends its
interest into the fields of local history and life-writing.
Beautiful Day introduces representative songs from 1964 to the
present by a range of Irish popular musicians. The book combines
written text with photographs to produce an attractive volume that
is evocative, informative, and controversial, and that has
widespread, cross-demographic appeal. Music has played an important
role throughout the island of Ireland since ancient times, and it
continues to represent one of the principal cultural avenues for
the expression and exploration of contemporary Irish identities.
Beautiful Day: Forty Years of Irish Rock tells the story of modern
Ireland from the perspective of the music produced across the
island during a period of rapid, decisive change. The volume is
made up of an introductory essay (4,000 words) followed by short
essays (ca. 1,200 words) on forty-one songs (one from each year
between 1964 and 2004) interspersed with photographic images
relating to individual performers, songs and / or cultural context.
This book will place representative material by a variety of
artists - including U2, Enya, The Corrs, Thin Lizzy, Van Morrison,
and Sinead O'Connor - in their musical, cultural and historical
contexts, while also introducing a range of less well known, but no
less interesting, Irish popular musicians from the 1960s down to
the present. Although the style is accessible, the research is
thorough, and is intended to challenge many received ideas relating
to the development of Ireland during this key stage of its
political and cultural history. The overall intention is to combine
written text with photographs to produce an attractive book that is
evocative, informative, and controversial, and that has widespread,
cross-demographic appeal.
This collection of essays, on the subject of music and Irish
identity, covers a number of different musical genres and periods,
produced in a coherent volume representing a significant
intervention within the field of Irish music studies. The main
articles include the (re-)establishment of music as a key object of
Irish cultural studies, the theoretical limitations of traditional
musicology, and the development of new methodologies specifically
designed to address the demands of Irish music in all its aspects.
With chapters ranging from the politics of betrayal in the songs of
Thomas Moore to the use of music in the award-winning film Once,
The Dancer From The Dance, the book offers an analysis of key
moments from Irish cultural history considered from the perspective
of music.
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