University of St. Thomas (Center for Irish Studies) Irish Music Orientalism Author(s): Aileen Dillane and Matthew Noone Source: New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua, Vol. 20, No. 1 (EARRACH / SPRING 2016), pp. 121-137 Published by: University of St. Thomas (Center for Irish Studies) Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44807170 Accessed: 08-07-2021 10:29 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms University of St. Thomas (Center for Irish Studies) is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua This content downloaded from 86.59.13.237 on Thu, 08 Jul 2021 10:29:14 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Aileen Dillane and Matthew Noone (X> Irish Music Orientalism In a 2005 review of Joseph Lennon s Irish Orientalism (2004), Nicholas Allen commends the author for the manner in which he has opened up "new perspec- tives on a discourse" that continue to be relevant for "the new century," adding that the "phenomenon of Irish orientalism needs further examination . and critical attention" from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.1 One of those new perspectives is surely that of music. Studying Irish music through the prism of Orientalism, and expanding discussions on Irish Orientalism to include music, has much to offer to Irish Studies more broadly - particularly given that Irish music has long been at the center of discussions on different registers of Irish identity over the centuries.2 The central tenet of Edward Said s seminal 1978 study, Orientalismy is that nations appropriate from others to define themselves and that the Orient is one of Europe's "deepest and most recurring images of the Other ... a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes [and] remarkable experiences."3 These ideas are familiar terrain for anyone who reads about Irish music and its connections to landscape and memory.4 But Said also cautions that the Orient is an invention "with no corresponding reality" and a construction based on myths that "has helped to define Europe as its contrasting image, idea, 1. Nicholas Allen, review of Irish Orientalism: A Literary and Intellectual History, New Hibernia Review, 9, 1 (Spring, 2005), 157-59. See also Michael Griffin, "Irish Orientalism: A Literary and Intel- lectual History (review)," Field Day Review , 1 (2005), 268-69. 2. See: Grattan Flood, Introduction Sketch of Irish Musical History: A Compact Record of the Progress of Music in Ireland During a Thousand Years (London: William Reeves, 1904); Tomas Ó Canainn Traditional Music in Ireland (Cork: Ossian, 1993); Breandán Breathnach, Folk Music and Dances of Ireland: A Comprehensive Study Examining the Basic Elements of Irish Folk Music and Dance Tradi- tions (1977; Dublin: Mercier, 1996); Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin, The Pocket History of Irish Traditional Music (Dublin: O'Brien, 1998); and Helen O'Shea, The Making of Irish Music (Cork: Cork University Press, 2008). 3. Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), 1-2. 4. See Sally K. Sommers Smith, "Landscape and Memory in Irish Traditional Music," New Hibernia Review, 2, 1 (Spring, 1998), 132-44. NEW HIBERNIA REVIEW / IRIS ÉIREANNACH NUA, 20:i (EARRACH / SPRING, 20l6), 121-137 This content downloaded from 86.59.13.237 on Thu, 08 Jul 2021 10:29:14 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Irish Music Orientalism personality [and] experience."5 If Orientalism is a myth-building project, how does it operate in the realm of Irish music? And is its operation there any differ- ent from what happens in other artistic and cultural realms? A powerful iteration of Orientalism in musical terms may be found in a 1970 Danish documentary in which the celebrated Irish composer, musician, and scholar Sean Ó Riada (1931-1971) tells the interviewer that "Ireland has a highly developed traditional music, very complex, very sophisticated, but it's more Ori- ental than Western," and goes on to compare it with different Oriental tradi- tions, including Indian classical music.6 In the course of the interview, Ó Riada not only recreates the Orient through sound; he also uses the Orient to validate ancient Irish cultural practices, which he explicitly locates as standing in opposi- tion to Europe. This "perceived otherness" is something by which Irish cultural identity has long been shaped, a point that John O'Flynn asserts in The Irishness of Irish Music (2008). 7 But Ó Riada takes it a step further, by harnessing alter ity as a double Otherness in order to copper-fasten the distinctiveness of ancient Irish musical heritage. Ó Riada's allusion to Irish-Indian sonic connections may rest upon colonial sympathies and cultural links between India and Ireland dating back to the nineteenth century and earlier.8 But can this account for the Indian-inspired music Orientalism that main- tains a sustained presence in Irish "musicking" currently?9 Among other con- temporary performers and composers working in this vein, we find the tradi- tional group Trúir, which has utilized an Indian drone instrument, the tanpura, to accompany newly composed sean-nós ("old style") songs.10 Irish traditional and jazz musicians under the leadership of Ronan Guilfoyle have toured, col- laborated, and recorded with South Indian musicians in his ensemble named Khanda.11 The Ó Snodaigh brothers of the Irish group Kila were recently filmed 5. Said, 5. 6. "Seán Ó Riada 1970," YouTube clip uploaded on May 8, 2011, https://www.youtube.com /watch?v=bSno7vfWwKM. 7. John O'Flynn, The Irishness of Irish Music (Farnham: Ashgate, 2008), 193. 8. For a more thorough exploration of connections between Ireland and India, see Ireland and In- dia: Colonies, Culture and Empire , ed. Maureen O'Connor and Tadhg Foley (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2006). 9. The musicologist Christopher Small coined the term "musicking" in order to emphasize that music is not an object or "thing," but rather, an activity encompassing the acts of composing, per- forming, listening and other acts. Christopher Small, Musicking: The Meaning of Performing and Listening (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1998). 10. See the albums Peadar Ó Riada, Martin Hayes, and Caoimhin O Raghallaigh, Triúr sa Draighe- an, Ó Riada, 2010; Peadar Ó Riada, Martin Hayes, and Caoimhin Ó Raghallaigh, Triúr Aris, Ó Riada, 2012; Peadar Ó Riada, Martin Hayes, and Caoimhin O Raghallaigh, Triur Omós , Ó Riada, 2013. All three albums were self-published by Ó Riada. 11. Khanda, Tale of Five Cities (Improvised Music Company, 2007). 122 This content downloaded from 86.59.13.237 on Thu, 08 Jul 2021 10:29:14 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Irish Music Orientalism on a trip to India as part of the documentary Cheoil Chuairt , broadcast on the Irish-language service TG4. They met and played with a variety of Indian musi- cians, and their interactions unmistakably suggested connections between their Irish culture and the "ancient" one they encountered.12 And Mícheál Ó Súilleab- háin, the founder-director of the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick, has composed a piece titled "At the Still Point of the Turning World," which uses Indian musical sounds, instruments, and composi- tional techniques.13 In light of these and other examples, a provisional definition of "Irish Music Orientalism" might be the adoption, adaptation, and applica- tion of perceived Irish-Oriental cultural sympathies - both real and imagined - through music making and its surrounding discourses. Musically, it manifests as the appropriation of the broad attributes and musical indicators that have stereotypically signified, or have come to be associated with, the Orient.14 What is at stake in these musical collaborations and elaborations? And what is there to be gained by critically examining Irish culture through music from a postcolonialist perspective, as an Orientalist critique implies? As David Lloyd argues, "the study of one given [postcolonial] site may be profoundly suggestive for the understanding of another" as a consequence of the "remarkably diverse ways its rationalizing drive is deflected by the particularities of each colonized culture."15 This "deflection" of colonial logic is uniquely exemplified by the way in which Irish artists have drawn upon Orientalist imagery from the Empire. Rather than accepting such imagery wholesale, many Irish collectors, compos- ers, and performers have inverted it through subversive poetic and musical re- imaginings. In other cases, there has been the continued perpetuation of certain British Orientalist forms that prove nonetheless compelling or worthy of study in an Irish Music Studies context precisely because of Ireland's relationship with 12. Cheoil Chuairt (Teilifís na Gaeilge, 2008). 13. Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, Gaiseadh/Fìow'mg , Virgin, 1992. More broadly, within such genres as "world music," "New Age fusion," and "global beat," there are a number of artists who draw either explicitly or more metaphysically from Irish-Indian connections such as the fusion group Delhi 2 Dublin, We're All Desi , Westward Records, 2013; Indo-Celt, Land of Dreams, Indocelt, 2005; and Chin- maya Dunster and Vidroha Jamie, Celtic Ragas , New Earth Records, 1998. 14. Another strand of the Orientalism in Irish music deals with connections to the Middle East and the Arabic world, particularly in the realm of vocal music. For example, Bob Quinn has asserted there is a clear connection between Arabic and Irish sean-nós singing traditions, whereby the sounds and culture were circulated through age-old maritime trade and cultural routes.