Traditional Music and Irish Society

'... this is a skilful, sustained trawl through traditional music's evolution'. The Irish Times 'This is a well-researched social and cultural history of the development of traditional music in Ireland. Dowling uses his multi-disciplinary scholarly background to show how non-musical factors influenced the development and establishment of the tradition. It is a clear-sighted work, contextually grounded and critical of inherited narratives, making it a valuable contribution to scholarship on traditional Irish music'. Speis, ICTM Ireland '... a wonderful set of timely, fresh and represented information of great value to musicians and of long lasting merit in Traditional music study. Dowling's achievement in this has been to add an important volume of thinking to what he once commented on as 'the scanty shelf of books on Irish music available to its students'. ... it should be ordered for every library in the country'. An Piobaire 'Dowling writes in an engaging and welcoming manner; readers will not be lost in the jargon-laden minutiae that characterize some works. Instead, he moves effectively from one issue to the next with transitions that make sense ... His ability to communicate in this manner bodes well for the use of this book across disciplines and at different levels of readership: from the upper-level undergraduate to the professor or interested layperson, the language is both informative and sometimes surprising in the best ways. Traditional Music and Irish Society is of particular value for its interdisciplinary approach that connects music to history, literature, the diaspora, economics, class, politics, nation-building, dance, religion, education, and identity. ... it grounds some of the common (and uncommon) knowledge about the music in such a strong framework that those of us who work in other fields will find this book to be an engaging and effective resource grounded in both contemporary interviews and original source materia