Mullaney-Dignan, Karol Anne
(2008)
State, Nation and Music in Independent
Ireland, 1922-51.
PhD thesis, National University of Ireland Maynooth.
Abstract
This dissertation will examine the relationship between state, nation and music in
independent Ireland in the years between 1922 and 1951. It seeks to draw together
these three elements, to establish the nature of their tripartite relationship in that
period and to register the level of compromise and reciprocity within that
relationship where appropriate.
This study does not purport to be a historical survey of music or musical
activity in independent Ireland from 1922 to 1951, although many of the major
musical events and developments are chronicled. It does not purport to be a study of
the nature of music in independent Ireland either, in terms of developments in
harmonic and rhythmic structure and arrangement, composition, recorded sound,
printed musical scores, or lyrical content, although references to these will be made
where suitable or necessary. The term ‘music’, as it is used here, generally refers to
the practical art o f producing sound, both instrumental and vocal, and the sound so
produced, as well as any academic engagement with or general activity related to that
art.
Incidentally, the term ‘state’ as used in this dissertation refers mainly to the
civil government of independent Ireland after 1922, although it should be clear when
it is used to denote the territory o f the island. The term ‘nation’, altogether more
difficult to define, largely refers, in this context, to the people of independent Ireland
united somehow by ideas of common descent or language, or simply by virtue of
inhabitancy within the state. Indeed the various attempts by the civil government of
the newly independent state to project a definition of the Irish nation and Irish
nationality after 1922, and the role that music played therein, forms a central tenet of
this thesis.
The primary objectives of this study, then, are to investigate to what extent
music was used by the Irish state after 1922 for the purposes of defining, inculcating,
expressing or projecting Irish nationality, to establish thereby a political framework
for certain developments in musical activity and to determine to what extent and end
such developments were affected, intentionally or otherwise, by the state. Issues
central to the development of a new independent polity attempting to express a sense
of identity, in an era of international advances in the purpose and methods of
education and in relevant technologies such as the radio, will provide a wider
perspective for examining music and musical activity in the first three decades of
independence in Ireland.
In that regard, the time frame chosen for this study is significant in itself. It
spans three different government administrations, from the Cumann na nGaedheal
party, which worked between 1922 and 1932 to consolidate and legitimise the new
independent state, to the Fianna Fail party, which consistently pointed to the
inadequacy of the efforts of their predecessors and undid the extant constitutional
ties of the state with the former United Kingdom in the period from 1932, to the first
coalition, or inter-party, government of independent Ireland, which comprised five
parties, Fine Gael, the Labour Party, Clann na Poblachta, Clann na Talmhan and
National Labour, and lasted until June 1951, the point at which this study ends.
| Item Type: |
Thesis
(PhD)
|
| Keywords: |
State; Nation; Music in Independent
Ireland; 1922-51; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Arts,Celtic Studies and Philosophy > History |
| Item ID: |
5382 |
| Depositing User: |
IR eTheses
|
| Date Deposited: |
09 Sep 2014 15:02 |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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