My name is Renske and I’m a 23-year old student from Amsterdam, the Netherlands. I am working on my bachelorthesis and I can really use your help!
My thesis is on the role of music in the conflict in Ireland. Is there anyone that can help me on this topic? I want to find out which role music played; was it for example used by the catholics in Northern Ireland to establish a sense of community? Was it used to spread hatred about others? Etcetera. I would be more than happy to know your ideas about this!
I’m planning on visiting Ireland in May, to do some interviews. Do you know old musicians who are willing to do an interview with me? Preferably near Dublin or Belfast, since I already have some interviews there. If you come from somewhere else, please let me know anyhow! r_uil_love88@hotmail.com
You can find a lot by reading news accounts. My Dad used to buy LPs in the 60’s and 70’s from certain groups until he found out (rightly or wrongly) that some of the proceeds were being used for violent purposes.
I don’t think I’d do interviews unless I had friends or relatives there to help me.
tony macmahon may be willing to communicate with you or give you leads. or, maybe not. but he is perhaps the sole traditional irish musician to be public with opinions and/or stands related to these issues. and he spent decades as a documentarian so may be able to grok where you are coming from. or not. i’m not saying his stands or views are right or wrong. i’m saying, he has been notable as a lone unashamedly public speaker/activist, and may be willing to talk to you about it. or…he may not.
[and i must say, as an aside rather than a comment on your project, that the truism in psychology that silence about family trauma can be more psychologically harmful than the actual traumatic events, seems to hold equally for “families” on the collective scale, and this particular historical/cultural/national example is no exception.]
My Dad used to buy LPs in the 60’s and 70’s from certain groups until he found out (rightly or wrongly) that some of the proceeds were being used for violent purposes.
Whose is the violent purpose? The man holding somebody down with a boot on his neck or the man who tries to get that boot off his neck?
These are all topics close to my heart, folks, but let’s remember our C&F principles and keep the political discussion here as nil as possible. Besides, there are already websites aplenty dedicated to just that purpose.
Perspective will remind us that renskedenuil asked for contacts, so this being a charged topic and with the CCCP in mind, let’s keep it at that. Otherwise, as ever, PMs and email only if you yourselves have more to say to him. Thanks.
Duly noted. I will say despite the strife that these differences cause, the fact that people have such identity and pride in these regions is, in a way, beautiful. I think my country, the States, is still very much struggling with its identity, flipping between apathy and fanaticism. It’s a shame we can’t unite the way our name would suggest.
I’m with you there, all right. What to do? I remember Gandhi: Be the change you want to see in the world. I think it’s the best, most immediate answer.
If it had, shadowy men in black sunglasses would have been knocking at your door that very day. Well, okay…maybe just a PM from a mod. Your post hasn’t been deleted, anyway. So, looks like the answer is pretty much a “No”.
It’s not always easy to distinguish between the political and the philosophical. To judge this, one way I do it is to go by context, which can sometimes be a maddenly vague thing, but I think the context of your question renders it clearly philosophical; furthermore you were not being histrionic or shouty, you were not taking sides or stirring any particular pot, but pointing out certain facts surrounding the topic, asking the reader to think about what those facts can mean, and thus simply cautioning us that the topic may be in danger of being incompletely considered unless we take the bigger picture into account.
But that’s just me, and since mods are supposed to make official judgments on these things, I have to go by something (which process, BTW, took me well less than a minute in your case compared to the time it has taken me to explain it here, but it’s worth discussing, so here we are). But we can make such calls for ourselves on a personal level. I believe if we take time to think about our words before we post, it’s not too hard to see them for what they are if we’re being honest with ourselves about it.
