Irish Music Abroad: Diasporic Sounds in Birmingham

Irish music enjoyed popularity across Europe and North America in the second half of the twentieth century. Regional circumstances created a unique reception for such music in the English Midlands. This book is a musical ethnography of Birmingham, 19502010.Initially establishing geographical and chronological parameters, the book cites Birminghams location at the hub of a road and communications network as key to the development of Irish music across a series of increasingly visible, public sites: Birminghams branch of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann was established in the domestic space of an amateur musician; Birminghams folk clubs encouraged a blend of Irish music with socialist politics, from which the Dublin singer Luke Kelly honed his trade; Irish solidarity was fostered in Birminghams churches. Each of these examples begins with a performance at Birmingham Town Hall in order to show how a single venue also provides musical representations that are mutable over time.The culmination is Birminghams St Patricks Parade. This, the largest Irish procession outside Dublin and New York, manifests an incoherent blend of sounds. The audio montage, nevertheless, creates a coherent metanarrative: one in which the local community has conquered a number of challenges (most especially that of the IRA bombings of the area) and has moved Irish music from private arenas to the centre of this large civic event. See more