Cardiff University | Prifysgol Caerdydd ORCA
Online Research @ Cardiff 
WelshClear Cookie - decide language by browser settings

Let the people sing? Irish rebel songs, sectarianism, and Scotland's Offensive Behaviour Act

Millar, Stephen R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8247-0529 2016. Let the people sing? Irish rebel songs, sectarianism, and Scotland's Offensive Behaviour Act. Popular Music 35 (3) , pp. 297-319. 10.1017/S0261143016000519

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

Irish rebel songs afford Scotland's Irish diaspora a means to assert, experience and perform their alterity free from the complexities of the Irish language. Yet this benign intent can be offset by how the music is perceived by elements of Scotland's majority Protestant population. The Scottish Government's Offensive Behaviour Act (2012) has been used to prosecute those singing Irish rebel songs and there is continuing debate as to how this alleged offence should be dealt with. This article explores the social function and cultural perception of Irish rebel songs in the west coast of Scotland, examining what qualities lead to a song being perceived as ‘sectarian’, by focusing on song lyrics, performance context and extra-musical discourse. The article explores the practice of lyrical ‘add-ins’ that inflect the meaning of key songs, and argues that the sectarianism of a song resides, at least in part, in the perception of the listener.

Item Type: Article
Date Type: Publication
Status: Published
Schools: Music
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
ISSN: 0261-1430
Funders: AHRC
Related URLs:
Date of First Compliant Deposit: 17 September 2018
Last Modified: 24 Oct 2022 07:19
URI: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/114645

Citation Data

Cited 11 times in Scopus. View in Scopus. Powered By Scopus® Data

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item Edit Item