Playing, paying and preying: cultural clash and paradox in the traditional music commonage

Abstract

A solid sense of indigenous Irishness in older music, song and dance has been established in Ireland since the 1960s. Known as 'traditional' (rather than 'folk'), this body of recreational and artistic melodic and rhythmic practices is a product of individual and collective creativity and social interaction. It has been added to by the consequences of colonial intervention and international fashions, and is linked to political identity, to history and to rural living. This essay uses aspects of the music's practices to show that traditional music is by evolution an artistic and cultural commons, a factor which has driven the impetus of its 1950s-on revival and (ultimately) has underpinned State recognition in both the arts and education. The idea of such a 'commons' has, however, been challenged in the later twentieth century by the pressure to have all forms of music licensed for performance in public spaces as well as for public broadcast. The morality—if not the legality—of such with regard to the traditional is questioned, not just because it has been enforced via State support, but because it amounts to an annexation of sites of performance of traditional music by the commerce of copyright. This has been done without consultation with the music's performers or those for whom the music is artistic legacy and cultural heritage.