Music in Ireland: 1916 and Beyond
22–24 April, 2016
DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama
in association with the
Society for Musicology in Ireland
and the
Research Foundation for Music in Ireland
Welcome from Dr Kerry Houston: Head of Academic Studies, Director of the Research Foundation for Music in Ireland.
I am delighted to welcome you to DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama to our conference this weekend. The Conservatory celebrated its 125th anniversary last year and we are planning to move to a new purpose-built campus in Grangegorman in 2018. The proceedings this weekend are part of the Research Foundation for Music in Ireland’s contribution to the Decade of Centenaries. The Research Foundation is developing a core of research resources which are freely available at www.musicresearch.ie and it is hoped that this conference will be a catalyst for further development of these resources. We welcome any suggestions you might have to expand what we have available on this website. The range, diversity and scope of the papers being presented over the next few days will provide fascinating new insights to the complexity of Irish music heritage and issues of Irish identity which are receiving new and fresh investigations at present. We are delighted at the response to the call for papers from a national and international arena which will be enhanced this weekend by a concert and an exhibition. I am very grateful to the members of the conference committee who have worked so hard to make this conference go smoothly and to the performers who have offered their time to perform in the concert. I thank Dr Orla McDonagh and all my colleagues at the Conservatory who have been so helpful in the arrangements. I am very pleased that Dr Lorraine Byrne Bodley, President of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, is with us and that we will be honouring one of the leading international experts on the music of Ireland, Dr Axel Klein, at the conference. I thank Dr Michael Mulvey, registrar of DIT, who has provided financial assistance and included the conference in DIT’s official 1916 programme, and to the Society for Musicology in Ireland which is hosting the wine reception. I look forward to meeting you in the formal and less formal parts of the weekend and hope that you have a very fruitful and enjoyable weekend.
Welcome from Dr Maria McHale: Chair of the Conference Committee
On behalf of the conference committee I would like to take this opportunity to offer a warm welcome to the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama and to the ‘Music in Ireland: 1916 and Beyond’ conference, held in association with the Society for Musicology in Ireland and the Research Foundation for Music in Ireland. The seeds for the conference were sown a year ago at a networking day held at the Conservatory that was funded by the Irish Research Council. Thanks are due to all the contributors to that event, several of whom are speaking this weekend, for both their ideas and enthusiasm for a conference in 2016. While many events have already been held to mark the centenary, this conference which, coincidentally, falls on the anniversary of the Easter Rising, presents an opportunity to examine its impact on Ireland’s musical culture. The range and breadth of papers that take us from the revolutionary years to the present is a testament to the amount of musicological scholarship in this area and sincere thanks are due to all speakers for their contributions. Many thanks also to Dr Orla McDonagh, Head of the Conservatory who has been very supportive towards this event and will open the conference, and to Professor Harry White, Chair of Music at University College Dublin, who will reflect on the findings of the conference in his closing address on Sunday afternoon.
In addition to the conference itself, there is an exhibition in the main foyer of the building of sheet music from c1916 which has been curated by Wanda Carin from the DIT Music and Drama library collections. On Friday evening the staff and students of the Conservatory will present a concert that is reflective of many of the research interests here. Special thanks are due to Dr Clíona Doris for her organisation of the programme, to Dr Mark Fitzgerald for providing the transcriptions of the works by Frederick May, and to all the musicians who have kindly agreed to perform.
Finally, thank you for coming to the conference. I hope you will find this rich programme of papers both enjoyable and stimulating.
Acknowledgements
Conference Committee
Catherine Ferris
Kerry Houston
Stephen McCann
Maria McHale
Aidan Thomson
Technical Support
Philip Cahill
Acknowledgements
Conor Caldwell
Wanda Carin
Claire Connell
Clíona Doris
Mark Fitzgerald
Fiona Howard
Elspeth Hayes
Sharon Hoefig
Varazdat Khachatryan
Catherina Lemoni-O’Doherty
Julie Maisel
Orla McDonagh
Michael Mulvey
David O’Doherty
Paul Roe
Harry White
Society for Musicology in Ireland
Staff and Students, DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama
Porters, DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama
Venue information
All papers take place on the first floor of the Conservatory in room 1.02
Friday evening’s concert will take place in the theatre, just off the main foyer. The wine reception to follow will be held at the Grand Staircase, next to the theatre.
The conference dinner on Saturday will be held at Kafka, 236 Rathmines Road Lower.
Programme
Friday 22 April
Welcome: 10.45–11.00 a.m.
Session A: 11.00 a.m.–12.30 p.m.
Chair: Harry White (University College Dublin)
Donal Fallon (University College Dublin)
The Sound of Irish Labour: The Importance of the Fintan Lalor Pipe Band in Revolutionary Dublin
Ruth Stanley (CIT Cork School of Music)
A Reading of Music and Cultural Identity in The Leader (1915–16)
Axel Klein (Independent Scholar)
‘I believe in God, Beethoven and Patrick Pearse’—The Radicalisation of Carl Hardebeck
Lunch: 12.30–1.30 p.m.
Session B: 1.30–3.00 p.m.
Chair: Mark Fitzgerald (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)
Joseph Kehoe (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)
Easter 1926, Easter 1936, Easter 1946: The Long Gestation of the Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra
Siobhan O’Halloran (Ulster University)
The Origins of the Ulster Orchestra: Institution and Ideology in a Fragmented Society
Méabh Ní Fhuartháin (NUI Galway)
Dance Halls, Parish Halls and Marquees: Popular and Shared Spaces for Music and Dance Practice
Tea/coffee break: 3.00–3.30 p.m.
Session C: 3.30–5.00 p.m.
Chair: Ruth Stanley (CIT Cork School of Music)
Stephen Mc Cann (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)
‘Take it down from the mast’: Music, Protest, and Legitimacy in the Early Troubles
Stephen Millar (Queen’s University Belfast)
Who Fears To Speak of Easter Week? Music, Irish Republicanism, and Marginality
J. Griffith Rollefson (University College Cork)
‘Strangers in Paradise’: Performing Rebellion, Embodying Postcoloniality on the Emerald Isle
Concert: 5.30 p.m.
Theatre, DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama
Frederick May (1911–1985) / Idyll (c1930s)David O’Doherty (violin), Catherina Lemoni-O’Doherty (piano)
Jane O’Leary (b. 1946) / Within/Without (2000)Paul Roe (clarinet)
Frederick May (1911–1985) / North Labrador (1940)Drought (1931)
April (c1934)
Elspeth Hayes (soprano), Varazdat Khachatryan (piano)
arr. John Buckley (b. 1951) / Down by the Salley Gardens (2010)Julie Maisel (flute), David O’Doherty (viola), Clíona Doris (harp)
Arnold Bax (1883–1953) / Elegiac Trio (1916)Julie Maisel (flute), David O’Doherty (viola), Clíona Doris (harp)
Wine Reception to follow the concert
Grand Staircase, DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama
The wine reception, generously sponsored by the Society for Musicology in Ireland, will include the launch of the Digitized Irish Music Collection by Sharon Hoefig (DIT) and also the award of Corresponding Member of the Society for Musicology in Ireland to Dr Axel Klein from the Society’s President, Dr Lorraine Byrne Bodley.
Saturday 23 April
Session D: 10.00–11.30 a.m.
Chair: David Mooney (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)
Maria Byrne (Maynooth University)
The Policeman’s Baton: An Instrument of Peace?
Kerry Houston (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)
Utterly Changed Times: Music at St Patrick’s and Christ Church Cathedrals in 1916
Michael Murphy (Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick)
‘Some have come from a land beyond the wave’: Domestic and Foreign Perspectives on the ‘Soldier’s Song’
Tea/coffee break: 11.30 a.m.–12.00 p.m.
Session E: 12.00–1.30 p.m.
Chair: Méabh Ní Fhuartháin (NUI Galway)
Rónán Galvin (Irish Traditional Music Archive)
‘Rocking the Cradle’ 1916: The Contribution of Patrick Weston Joyce and Breandán Breathnach to the Study of Irish Traditional Music and Song
Conor Caldwell (Queen’s University Belfast)
‘...though so very much corrupted as to be quite barbarous’: Attitudes towards Irish Music in the Gaelic Revival
Adrian Scahill (Maynooth University)
Revival and Revolution: A Transitional Period in the Ensemble Playing of Irish Traditional Music
Lunch: 1.30–2.30 p.m.
Session F: 2.30–4.00 p.m.
Chair: Michael Murphy (Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick)
Maria McHale (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)
Voices of the Rising: Musical Culture in Revolutionary Dublin
Richard Parfitt (Linacre College, Oxford)
‘Living Still in Spite of Fire, Dungeon and Sword’: Music and Irish Political Prisoners, 1916–1921
Christina Bashford (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
‘If I practice I can make a fair show’: The Power of the Violin in the Ballykinlar Internment Camp during the Anglo-Irish War (1919–21)
Tea/coffee break: 4.00–4.30 p.m.
Session G: 4.30–6.00 p.m.
Chair: Aidan Thomson (Queen’s University Belfast)
Teresa O’Donnell (Independent Scholar)
Marking the Fiftieth Anniversary of the 1916 Rising through Music
Angela Goff (Waterford Institute of Technology)
Táin Bó Cúailnge: The Cultural Significance of an Ancient Saga within the Repertoire of Irish Contemporary Music
Mark Fitzgerald (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)
After 1916—Composers and Politics, Composition and Politics, Musicology and Politics
Conference dinner: 6.30 p.m., Kafka Restaurant, Rathmines.
Sunday 24 April
Session H: 10.00–11.30 a.m.
Chair: Kerry Houston (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)
Mary Louise O’Donnell (Independent Scholar)
Guns, Gaels and Gondoliers: Music in Dublin in 1916
Ita Beausang (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)
Irish Composers and 1916
David Mooney (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)
‘And the show goes on…’: The 1916 Feis Ceoil
Tea/coffee break: 11.30 a.m.–12.00 p.m.
Session I: 12.00–1.30 p.m.
Chair: Christina Bashford (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Cosimo Colazzo (Conservatorio di musica ‘F.A. Bonporti’ di Trento) in collaboration with Giuliana Adamo (Trinity College, Dublin)
An Italian Composer during the Irish Independence Process: Michele Esposito
Aidan Thomson (Queen’s University Belfast)
Bax’s In Memoriam: Memory, Martyrdom and Modalities of Irishness
Ian Maxwell (University of Cambridge)
Moeran in Ireland, 1917–1918 and 1935
Closing Comments: 1.30–2.00 p.m.
Harry White (University College Dublin)
Abstracts
Session A
Donal Fallon (University College Dublin)
The sound of Irish Labour: The Importance of the Fintan Lalor Pipe Band in Revolutionary Dublin
The Fintan Lalor Pipe Band, established in 1912, was closely aligned with the radical trade union movement in the revolutionary period, and ultimately came to be seen by the public and the authorities as the band of the Irish Citizen Army. Frank Robbins, an ICA participant in the 1916 rebellion who later penned a memoir of the workers’ militia, remembered that the band was ‘part and parcel of the Irish Citizen Army’. The band was named in honour of James Fintan Lalor (1807–49), a Young Irelander and an important political influence on James Connolly.
Thomas O’Donoghue, a participant in the band who later fought in the Easter Rising, recalled that ‘when arms became more plentiful, I insisted that the band itself should be armed with revolvers and, of course, ammunition’. This was owing to the manner in which the band was frequently targeted by the Dublin Metropolitan Police, sometimes losing instruments to assaults. In the War of Independence, the band lost much of its instruments as a result of a Black and Tan raid on Liberty Hall, the home of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union.
While there is a growing historiography on the Irish Citizen Army and socialist participation in the revolutionary period, the Fintan Lalor Pipe Band has largely been awarded little more than passing reference. This paper will draw on Bureau of Military History Witness Statements, Dublin Metropolitan Police intelligence files, and other primary source materials, such as The Workers’ Republic newspaper, to highlight the role of Fintan Lalor Pipe Band members in the Easter Rising and surrounding events, as well as demonstrating the importance of music to the radical left.
Ruth Stanley (CIT Cork School of Music)
A Reading of Music and Cultural Identity in The Leader (1915–16)
Promoting an essentially Gaelic and Catholic Irish identity, The Leader provides a fascinating record of views on cultural nationalism in Ireland during the early twentieth century. In particular, a series of seventy-four articles by Annie Patterson (1868–1934) disseminated her patriotic aspirations for Irish music. Written between 1915 and 1916, these articles promoted the cause of ‘Musical Home Rule’, for which an ‘Irish Musical Revival’ would generate more Irish operas, cantatas, orchestral and other instrumental works. Such native compositions, Patterson argued, could be used in educational and examination settings in order to counter ‘alien musical training’. Patterson also proposed an ‘Irish Composers’ Union’ on racial grounds, which would ensure that Irish music was infused with the ‘spirit of the Gael’. Patterson rejected modernism in music, however, and advocated compositions that were inspired by Irish melody and simple harmonies. Such a utopian vision was typical of the ethos of The Leader, which campaigned for Irish sovereignty in all areas of society. Rejection of imported goods, both material and cultural, informed many of the articles and reader correspondence. British imports were particularly reviled, including cosmetics, fashion trends and smoking. So, too, were cinema, minstrel troupes, music hall and revues disparaged as ‘a hideous feast of vulgarity bordering on indecency’. It was all the more vexing that packed audiences seemed to enjoy them. Notwithstanding the conservative and often xenophobic tenor of cultural revivalist debates in The Leader, there remains a subtle complexity to the cultural identities that emerge from their authors.
Axel Klein (Independent Scholar)
‘I believe in God, Beethoven and Patrick Pearse’—The Radicalisation of Carl Hardebeck
Carl Gilbert Hardebeck (1869–1945), a London-born musician of German and Welsh parentage, is a typical example of the immigrant who became ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves’. From his arrival in Belfast in 1893, his numerous Feis Ceoil participations as composer, accompanist and adjudicator, and his periods in Cork (1919–23) and Dublin (1932–45), meant that he increasingly identified with the Irish question, particularly during the years leading up to the Easter Rising and to independence. This paper traces the steps that led to this transformation, which include some personal contact with Patrick Pearse and Michael Collins. Apart from his political convictions, the process of radicalisation in his Irishness also became apparent in a unique approach to the arrangement of Irish traditional music in (small) forms of art music. Yet, for all that he achieved, Seán O’Boyle’s confident projection (1948) that ‘the Ireland that is true to herself will always be true to Hardebeck’ did not come true. A hundred years after the Easter Rising, Hardebeck is no longer present in the Irish musical mind.