Music and politics in Ireland: The specificity of the folk revival in Belfast

Abstract

Academic definitions of folk song have excluded Irish patriotic and nationalist song which, in conjunction with the cultural avoidance of politically sensitive issues endemic in northern Irish society, facilitated the integration of middle‐class Catholics and Protestants in the folk revival. This paper contextualizes the folk revivial in Belfast within the historical and contemporary setting of Irish nationalist politics and song and explores how song has been used to construct identities in “the battle of two civilisations”.