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Music, the Moving Image and Ireland, 1897–2017 constitutes the first comprehensive study of music for screen productions from or relating to the island. It identifies and interprets tendencies over the first 120 years of a field comprising the relatively distinct yet often overlapping areas of Irish-themed and Irish-produced film. Dividing into three parts, the book first explores accompaniments and scores for 20th-century Irish-themed narrative features that resulted in significant contributions by many Hollywood, British, continental European and, to a lesser extent, Irish composers, along with the input of many orchestras and other musicians. Its second part is framed by a consideration of various cultural, political and economic developments in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland from the 1920s (including the Troubles of 1968–1998). Focusing on scoring and other aspects of soundtrack production for domestic newsreel, documentary film and TV programming, it interprets the substantial output of many Irish composers within this milieu, particularly from the 1960s to the 1990s. Also referring to broader cultural and historical themes, the book’s third and final part charts approaches to and developments in music and sound design over various waves of Irish cinema, from its relatively late emergence in the 1970s to an exponential growth and increasingly transnational orientation in the early decades of the 21st century.
John O’Flynn is Associate Professor of Music at Dublin City University. He is author of The Irishness of Irish Music (2009) and co-editor of several books, including Music and Identity in Ireland and Beyond (2014) and Made in Ireland: Studies in Popular Music (2020).
Ashgate Screen Music
Series Editors: James Deaville
Carleton University, Canada
Kathryn Kalinak
Rhode Island College, USA
and Ben Winters
Open University, UK
The Ashgate Screen Music series publishes monographs and edited collections about music in film, television, video games and in new screening contexts such as the internet from any time and any location. All of these titles share the common dedication to advancing our understanding of how music interacts with moving images, supporting narrative, creating affect, suspending disbelief, and engrossing audiences. The series is not tied to a particular medium or genre, but can range from director-composer auteur studies (Hitchcock and Herrmann, Leone and Morricone, Burton and Elfman), through multi-author volumes on music in specific television programmes (Glee, Doctor Who, Lost), to collective explorations of topics that cut across genres and media (music on small screens, non-Western music in Western moving-image representations). As such, the Ashgate Screen Music Series is intended to make a valuable contribution to the literature about music and moving images.
Heavy Metal at the Movies
Gerd Bayer
The Screen Music of Trevor Jones
Technology, Process, Production
Edited by David Cooper, Ian Sapiro and Laura Anderson
Scoring the Hollywood Actor in the 1950s
Gregory Camp
Musical Sincerity and Transcendence in Film
Reflexive Fictions
Timothy B. Cochran
Music, the Moving Image and Ireland, 1897–2017
John O’Flynn
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/music/ series/ASM
Music, the Moving Image
and Ireland, 1897–2017
John O’Flynn
First published 2022 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge
The right of John O’Flynn to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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ISBN: 978-1-138-56177-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-19135-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-71039-5 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9780203710395
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Dedicated to the memory of my mother, May
List of illustrations x Acknowledgements xii
List of abbreviations xv
Introduction: music, the moving image and Ireland 1
Conceiving the field 1
A national cinema? 3
Aims and methods 6
Representing Ireland 6
Musical tropes and their alternatives: a book of three parts 7
Musical and ideological readings 10
PART 1
Irish themes on screen and in sound 13
1 The first half-century: from silent newsreel to narrative sound film 15
The beginnings of Irish cinema 15
Early Irish-themed sound film 18
Max Steiner and Irish-themed film 20
British and Irish film: the mid-to-late 1930s 28
Irish-themed British film music: William Alwyn 32
The luck of the Irish? 36
2 Harping on? the 1950s–1990s 41
The early to mid-1950s 41
Irish-produced and Irish-themed 46
Fighters, writers and leprechauns 47
Different directions in the 1970s 54
Reworking sonic Irishness 60
3 Literature-to-film adaptations and music 66
O’Casey and Synge 66
Joyce, music and film 70
New generations of writers 73
Elmer Bernstein and adapted Irish screenplays 75
End-of-century adaptations 79
PART 2
Perception and production from within 85
4
Sounding nation and culture on screen 87
Early perspectives on the independence struggle 87
Anthropology and ideology 89
Nation-building 91
Tourism, heritage and the natural world 96
Commemoration 100
Documenting tradition in a modern age 105
5
Soundtracks to Ireland’s troubles: dramas and documentaries 112
The long 19th century on TV 112
The Northern Ireland Troubles in documentary film 115
The mid-1990s: a new aesthetic for Troubles documentaries? 121
Critical perspectives on the Republic: the 1960s 123
Continuing themes of unemployment, emigration and diaspora 126
Abuse, abjection and marginalization 129
Millennial perspectives on Irish history 131
6 Irish composers and 20th-century film and TV 135
Mid-20th-century composers 136
Combining tradition and modernity? 139
Experimental scoring: Brian Boydell 141
Composing for TV: A.J. Potter 145
From newsreel to feature film: Gerard Victory 148
The late 20th century: Seóirse Bodley, John Buckley and Roger Doyle 151
Cinematic
7 Soundtracks for an emerging Irish cinema: margins, borders, troubles 163
On the margins: first-wave Irish cinema 163
Early narrative features on the Troubles 170
Troubles films go mainstream 174
South of the border: past troubles 180
8 A plurality of genres 188
Documenting music on screen 189
Traditional and folk soundtracks 191
Traditional music and orchestral scores: Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, Bill Whelan and Shaun Davey 193
From stage to soundtrack: music hall, dance bands and jazz 198
Popular music: composition and compilation 201
The Irish music-film 204
9 21st-century themes 212
Soundtracks, places, spaces 212
Crime drama 217
Past traumas 219
Looking back at the Troubles 224
Outsiders 229
Beyond Ireland 234
Conclusion: retrospectives and recent developments 237
Music, the moving image and Ireland: the first 120 years 237
21st-century documentary features 238
Retrospectives and (re)composition 241
Developments in screen music production 245
Illustrations
Figures
4.1 American GIs gather for a communal song in A Letter from Ulster (1943)
5.1 Conductor/composer Proinnsías Ó Duinn, producer/director Tony Barry and members of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra recording music for Strumpet City (1980)
6.1 Mezzo-soprano Bernadette Greevy, tenor Edwin Fitzgibbon and other cast members of the RTÉ TV opera Patrick (1965) 146
7.1 Isobel Stephenson and Brid Brennan in Anne Devlin (1984) 166
8.1 Ciarán Burns as Luke in Night in Tunisia (1982)
8.2 Richard Dormer as Terri Hooley with fans in Good Vibrations (2012)
8.3 Ferdia Walsh-Peelo as Cosmo with band in Sing Street (2016) 210
Music examples
1.1 Steiner, The Informer, ‘It’s Ireland’ 23
1.2.1 Traditional melody to ‘The Wearing of the Green’ 24
1.2.2 Steiner, The Informer, Frankie McPhillips on the run 24
1.2.3 Steiner, The Informer, Frankie and Gypo meet (‘Dunboy Home’) 25
1.2.4 Steiner, The Informer, IRA volunteers’ scene 26
1.3 Ó Gallchobhair, West of Kerry, ‘Blaskets theme’ opening figure 31
1.4 Alwyn, Odd Man Out, ‘Johnny’s Walk’/main title theme 35
2.1 Alwyn, No Resting Place, ‘Kyles in the Carrot Field’
2.2 Alwyn, Shake Hands with the Devil, main title theme
2.3 Alwyn, Shake Hands with the Devil, main title motif 48
2.4 Jarre, Ryan’s Daughter, extract from ‘Rosy’s theme’/ main title theme
2.5 Williams, Far and Away, extract from ‘The Fighting Donellys’ 63
2.6 Williams, Far and Away, extract from ‘Joseph and Shannon’
3.1 Bernstein, Da, extract from ‘Main Title’
3.2 Bernstein, The Field, extract from ‘Sun up’/main title theme 78
3.3 Williams, Angela’s Ashes, extract from ‘Angela’s Prayer’ 81
4.1 Ó Riada, Saoirse?, second theme
4.2 Victory, Another Island/Oileán Eile, main title theme
5.1 Davey, The Hanging Gale, extract from ‘Famine Road’ 115
6.3 Boydell, Ireland, ‘Clew Bay’, main title theme 143
6.4 Victory, Shannon, Portrait of a River, first movement opening 150
6.5 Buckley, The Woman Who Married Clark Gable, main title music 155
6.6 Buckley, The Woman Who Married Clark Gable, ‘Palm House’ 157
8.1 Davey, Waking Ned Devine, ‘Fill to Me the Parting Glass’ 198
10.1 Ó Súilleabháin, Irish Destiny, ‘Love theme’
10.1 IFTA awards for best original music, 2003–2017
Acknowledgements
This book was something of an undertaking, and could not have been completed without the support, advice and goodwill of many people along the way.
I would first like to express my gratitude to series editors James Deaville, Kathryn Kalinak and Ben Winters for having faith and patience in equal abundance, and for their very helpful comments and suggestions. I’m also very grateful to the anonymous reviewer of draft chapters for their engagement and encouragement. Many thanks to those at Routledge who provided valued advice from proposal to editing stages, including Genevieve Aoki, Heidi Bishop, Kaushikee Sharma and Annie Vaughan; and to Chris Mathews and colleagues at Apex CoVantage. Additionally, I greatly appreciate Donal Fullam’s meticulous work in preparing the index.
The research support given by St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, and by the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Dublin City University (DCU) was extensive and much appreciated; a special note of thanks is due to Patricia Flynn for facilitating the project during its early stages.
The following colleagues and friends read draft chapters and offered invaluable feedback: Laura Anderson, John Buckley, Rhona Clarke, Mark Fitzgerald, Peter Gahan, Áine Mangaoang, Stephen Millar, Kayla Rush and Laura Watson. I am deeply indebted to all, and to Peter also for accommodating me during my visit to Los Angeles and sharing a memorable road trip to Provo, Utah.
Other support from colleagues came through advice on particular queries, feedback after conference papers or the sharing of materials or ideas that led me down productive pathways. Many thanks are due to Emilio Audissino, Desmond Bell, Lorraine Byrne Bodley, Nicholas Carolan, David Cooper, Annette Davison, Síle Denvir, Barbara Dignam, Ronan Guilfoyle, Thomas Johnston, Aylish Kerrigan, the late Danijela Kulezic-Wilson, Tony Langlois, Frank Lehman, James McAuley, Paul McIntyre, Noel McLaughlin, Seán Mac Liam, Wolfgang Marx, Aimee Mollaghan, Mick Moloney, Christopher Morris, Kieran Moynihan, Áine Mulvey, Deirdre Ní Chonghaile, Méabh Ní Fhuartháin, Teresa O’Donnell, Peadar Ó Riada, Nathan Platte, Miriam Roycroft, Adrian Scahill, Gerry Smyth, Brian Trench and Harry White.
Over the years that it took me to complete this work, I also benefitted from the collegiality and support of many at DCU; as well as those already mentioned, they include Peter Admirand, Brad Anderson, Marie-Louise Bowe, Róisín Blunnie, Michelle Brennan, Susan Byrne, Carol Diamond, Seán Doherty, Solomon
Acknowledgements xiii
Gwerevende, Mary Hayes, Ailsing Kenny, Hazel Langan, Eugene McNulty, Roisín Nic Athlaoich, Pádraig Ó Duibhir and Ethna Regan.
I would also like to register my appreciation for those who convened film music and sound design conferences that I attended and gained much from while preparing this book: Gillian Anderson and Ronald Sadoff (Music and the Moving Image, NYU Steinhardt); David Cooper, Ian Sapiro, Laura Anderson and Sarah Hall (Music for Audio-Visual Media, University of Leeds); Antanas Kučinskas (Music and Sound Design in Film and New Media, Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre); Alessandro Bratus, Alessandro Cecchi, Maurizio Corbella and Elena Mosconi (Mapping Spaces, Sounding Places: Geographies of Sound in Audiovisual Media, University of Pavia); and Laura Anderson (Music and Sound Design for the Screen, Maynooth University).
I am especially grateful to the composers John Buckley, Shaun Davey and the late Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin for generously sharing copies or lending me originals of their film and TV scores. John and Shaun provided further insights into their work through extended interviews as did music producers Brian Masterson and Maurice Roycroft (Seezer). Other composers who supported my research via email correspondence included Deirdre McKay and Patrick Cassidy.
A wide range of materials was accessed for this book. This would not have been possible without the professional support and advice of many librarians and archivists at institutions in Ireland, the UK and US. Many thanks are due to the following for facilitating on-site visits: James D’arc, Ben Harry and Jeff Lyon, L. Tom Perry Special Collections Library, Brigham Young University; Aoife Fitzmaurice, Irish Film Institute; Sandra Garcia-Myers, USC Warner Brothers Archives, University of Southern California; Margaret Jones, Music Collections, Cambridge University Library; Aisling Lockhart, Caoimhe Ní Ghormáin, Ellen O’Flaherty and Dáire Rooney, Manuscripts & Archives Research Library, Trinity College Dublin; Vicky Moran, RTÉ Archives; Warren Sherk, Special Collections, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Emer Twohey, Boole Library, University College Cork; and Susan Brodigan, Jonathan Grimes and Evonne Ferguson, Contemporary Music Centre. I am very grateful also to Sarah Burn, executor of A.J. Potter’s estate, who provided valuable access to the Potter Archive and answered many queries, and to Bill Hughes of Mind the Gap Films for lending several DVDs.
Thanks are also due to the following: Espen Bale, British Film Institute; Mark Bollard; Breeda Brennan, RTÉ Photo Sales; Barra Boydell; Philip Devine, Irish Film Institute; Lisa Edmondson, Amber Records; Andrew Knowles, The William Alwyn Foundation; Aoife Murphy and colleagues at DCU Library; Helen Phelan; The Trevor Jones Archive at the University of Leeds; Isolde Victory; and staff at my local public library in Phibsboro, Dublin (across the street from the site of Phibsboro Picture House, which opened in 1914).
While preparing for this book, I greatly benefitted from materials and/or information publicly available via online archives and databases, including Irish Film & TV Research Online, School of Creative Arts, Trinity College Dublin; Contemporary Music Centre, Dublin; BBC Genome Project; BFI Player; IFI Player; Northern Ireland Screen; RTÉ Archives; National Library of Ireland; Libraries
Acknowledgements
Ireland; Screen Ireland; Irish Film and TV Academy; Screen Composers Guild of Ireland.
Finally, I would like to express my deep appreciation for the support given by my family and friends, and most of all by Hertz, who demonstrated patience, understanding and encouragement at every stage of what not only seemed, but was a long journey.
Abbreviations
BAFTA British Academy of Film and Television Arts
BBC British Broadcasting Corporation
BBC NI BBC Northern Ireland
BBC NIHS BBC Northern Ireland Home Service
BBC NIO BBC Northern Ireland Orchestra
BFI British Film Institute
bpm beats per minute
CMC Contemporary Music Centre (Dublin)
CMI Computer Musical Instrument
COI Central Office of Information
DCU Dublin City University
ESB Electricity Supply Board
EWI Electronic Wind Instrument
EVI Electronic Valve Instrument
FCOI Film Company of Ireland
GAA Gaelic Athletic Association
HBO Home Box Office
IFI Irish Film Institute
IFO Irish Film Orchestra
IFTA Irish Film and TV Academy
IMRO Irish Music Rights Organisation
IRA Irish Republican Army
ITMA Irish Traditional Music Archive
ITV Independent Television Network
MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface
mm. measures (bars)
NBC National Broadcasting Company (USA)
NCH National Concert Hall (Dublin)
NILO Northern Ireland Light Orchestra
NITB Northern Ireland Tourist Board
PRS Performing Rights Society
QUB Queen’s University Belfast
xvi Abbreviations
RÉLO Raidió Éireann Light Orchestra
RKO Radio-Keith-Orpheum
rpm revolutions per minute
RTÉ Raidió Teilifís Éireann
RTÉCO RTÉ Concert Orchestra
RTÉSO RTÉ Symphony Orchestra
RUC Royal Ulster Constabulary
SBS Special Broadcasting Service (Australia)
SCGI Screen Composers’ Guild of Ireland
SXSW South by Southwest
TCD Trinity College Dublin
TG4 Teilifís na Gaeilge
UCC University College Cork
UCLA University of California, Los Angeles
UDA Ulster Defence Association
UTDA Ulster Tourist Development Association
UTV Ulster Television
UVF Ulster Volunteer Force
WASP White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
WWI First World War
WWII Second World War
Introduction
Music, the moving image and Ireland
Conceiving the field
The year 2016 represented a landmark year in Irish history, marking a century since the fateful republican insurrection that was shortly followed by independence from Britain and political partition of the island. Commemorating 1916 gave cause to Irish governmental agencies, statutory organizations and specialist sectors to reflect on the social, economic and cultural achievements of Ireland in the intervening 100 years. The result was a series of curated events, including ‘Appraising the Uprising’ at the Dublin-based Irish Film Institute (IFI). Its programme included ciné concerts of live musical accompaniment to archival newsreel and a screening of Irish Destiny (Dewhurst 1926), a rare example of a domestic silent feature produced in the early years of the Irish Free State. It was accompanied on piano by Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, composer of its contemporary score.
At the National Concert Hall (NCH) in Dublin, concert music1 was celebrated under the series ‘Composing the Island: A Century of Music in Ireland 1916–2016’. Although music composed for film or TV was not considered under that series’ programming, on three separate occasions in 2016, Seán Ó Riada’s widely popular score for George Morrison’s commemorative documentary Mise Éire [I, Ireland] (1959) was performed by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra to live screenings at the NCH. Moreover, the national broadcaster RTÉ commissioned and televised a number of special concerts and TV documentaries marking the centenary. It further produced the drama series Rebellion (Louhimies 2016) with a substantial orchestral score by Stephen Rennicks.
The year 2016 also saw the release of The Secret Scripture, directed by established filmmaker Jim Sheridan and featuring original music by Brian Byrne, one of a growing number of Hollywood-based Irish film composers. The film was part of a trail of high-profile productions for Irish cinema that decade, including two critically acclaimed and commercially successful films in 2015—John Crowley’s Brooklyn and Lenny Abrahamson’s Room. The latter featured a sophisticated, integrated soundtrack that included music by Stephen Rennicks.
The activities listed above point to a vibrant milieu for Irish film and TV production, including the involvement of composers, performers and sound designers. However, this belies a scenario where Ireland lagged behind other
DOI: 10.4324/9780203710395-1
national film industries for much of the 20th century. While a significant corpus of independent films were produced from the 1970s to the mid-1980s, a period often interpreted in experimental and avant-garde terms, it was not until the late 1980s and 1990s that a sustainable base for Irish film industries began to take hold.
Generally benefitting from improved state investment and infrastructural provision along with increased global capital flow, Irish (co-)produced films of the late 20th century aligned more with mainstream commercial interests. While this did not necessarily negate their critical potential, one observable compromise for domestic-produced films of the time was the casting of Hollywood or British actors in local roles and the commissioning of recognized Hollywood and other international composers to produce original scores. Two of Jim Sheridan’s earliest films, My Left Foot (1989) and The Field (1990) involved collaborations with the then seasoned Hollywood composer Elmer Bernstein. Other Irish directors, notably Neil Jordan, exercised a general preference for the integration of pre-existing popular music tracks, while also working with international composers. A corollary to these tendencies was that Irish composers were significantly underrepresented in mainstream film production at the time. However, a substantially different history can be interpreted when appraising activities beyond dominant Hollywood practice, including music for independent features, documentary subjects and TV dramas.
One of this book’s goals is to document the considerable involvement of many Irish composers, performers and other music personnel in a variety of screen productions from the early 20th century. In identifying this field, it nonetheless acknowledges how various political, economic and cultural factors impeded the growth of domestic film industries following independence. The same underlying constraints did little to sustain composers and professional performers over this period, with the Irish state providing limited infrastructural supports for music development.
The greatest obstacles to direct Irish involvement in film music were the lack of sound recording facilities and the restricted scope for indigenous film and TV production until the 1960s, although the contributions of domestic musicians in the mid-20th century were by no means negligible. At the same time, both Hollywood and British studios produced a significant corpus of Irish-themed narrative features, and with this came a host of original scores involving renowned film composers and orchestras. Accordingly, this book also encompasses a substantial body of externally produced soundtracks. The range of compositional and other creative forces arising from these two major strands of screen music—Irish-themed and Irish-produced—forms a subject of appreciable national and international significance that has hitherto been unexplored.
Spanning 120 years of cinema history, Music, the Moving Image and Ireland presents analyses and discussions of music from selected Irish-themed and Irish(co-)produced films. State involvement in newsreel and TV from the mid to late 20th century is also considered, as it was through these production bases that facilities and opportunities for domestic composition, orchestral involvement and various music and sound department roles gradually developed. The book further
3 explores music and sound design for independent Irish features from the 1970s to the 2010s, as well as transnational productions and selected TV series from this time.
A national cinema?
In its appraisal of music for domestic as well as international screen productions, this book addresses historical and material conditions that were unique to Ireland. Critically, indigenous film industries failed to establish a sustainable production base until the latter decades of the 20th century (Barton 2004; McLoone 2000; Pettitt 2000a; Rockett, Gibbons and Hill, 1988). Furthermore, early 21st-century film and TV continued to involve various forms of international co-production, collaboration and investment, trends that led Gillespie (2008) to regard the very conception of an Irish national cinema as a myth.
While also dismissing essentialist or vague definitions, Barton (2004, 6–10) proposes several characteristics that loosely delineate an Irish national cinema: a body of films produced internally and externally that addresses local and/or diasporic cultures; a national archive of images; a concentration of productions and industries; a dialogue with national culture; distinctiveness as an art form; and accommodation of a national cinema culture beyond production. This set of characteristics comes close to how this book’s subject matter is conceived, while also recognizing increasingly transnational dimensions of the field (Barton 2019, 11–12).
The framework for Music, the Moving Image and Ireland elaborates on one of Barton’s defining characteristics and adds another. First, while regarding the national as a critical factor, a nuanced sense of this is required to embrace two political jurisdictions as well as multiple rather than singular ethnicities and cultures. A key concern here is how sonic markers of nationality and ethnicity, whether projected as homogeneous (and/or homologous) or contested, contribute to the potential meanings afforded by screen productions. The soundtrack for the BBC drama series Harry’s Game (Clark 1982) presents an example where music demarcates political and ethnic differences. Its plot centres on a British secret agent attempting to infiltrate IRA circles in Belfast during one of the most disturbing periods of the Northern Ireland Troubles. The narrative, while somewhat sympathetic to Irish republican perspectives, is clearly framed by a colonial gaze. These differences are accentuated by the modernist piano trio underscore by Mike Moran that associates dramatically with the series’ British protagonists, and an Irishlanguage end credits song performed by Celtic/New Age band Clannad—a beautiful yet eerie track that subliminally communicates Otherness on the part of its Irish protagonists, and an ahistorical sense of pathos surrounding the Troubles.
Asecond critical point of qualification for this book’s framework is that any defining set of characteristics for Irish national cinema also requires consideration of an archive of sound. While several scholars, including Barton (2004; 2019), Condon (2008; 2018), Donnelly (2007; 2015b; 2019), Monahan (2009; 2018), O’Brien (2004), Pramaggiore (1998; 2008), Smyth (2009) and Zucker (2008), have contemplated
music and sound in textual analyses of Irish-themed and/or Irish-produced film, to date this integral aspect of the audiovisual text has not been systematically considered in histories and appraisals of Irish cinema and TV. This follows a well-established argument in international film music studies, with the titles for both Gorbman’s Unheard Melodies (1987) and Kalinak’s Settling the Score (1992) referring to film analysts’ oversight of music composed for mainstream narrative film (see also Gorbman 1980). Later studies evaluated music and sound across a wider range of genres (e.g. Brown 1994; Donnelly 2001; Wierzbicki 2009), extending to alternative non-Hollywood practices, auteur theory and the use of pre-existing music (Davison 2004; Inglis 2003; McQuiston 2013; Powrie and Stilwell 2006), with others addressing music and cinema in the decades preceding synchronized sound film (Altman 2004; Anderson 1987; Barton and Trezise 2018).
All of the aforementioned point to the central role of music and sound in film and TV studies. Indeed, several authors not only argue for their inclusion on grounds that they are integral to the audiovisual text but also more radically suggest that music is intricately and holistically involved in the creation and reception of film narrative structures (Heldt 2013; Winters 2012; 2014). Moreover, following Chion’s conception of integrated sonic environments in film (1994), a significant number of audiovisual texts can be considered analogous to musical forms by virtue of the shared dimensions of time, rhythm and movement; accordingly, the lines between music and sound design increasingly become blurred (Greene and Kulezic-Wilson 2016; Kulezic-Wilson 2015; 2020).
The approaches to film music studies briefly mentioned thus far inform different sections of this book. So too does the comparable literature on music and national cinema, although to date there have been relatively few monographs or edited volumes that consider music for the screen in national entities outside the US and Britain. Titles pertaining to American film music are largely based on dominant Hollywood practice, with many focusing on musicals (Altman 1987; Cooke 2010; Darby and Du Bois 1999). Mostly, these do not engage with sociological conceptions of the national, although this lacuna is addressed in more specialized studies, including music for suburban-themed film (Pelkey and Bushard 2015) and representations of minority ethnicities (Garcia 2014) or ‘mainstream’ national identity in film musicals (Knapp 2018).
Histories of British film music include those by Huntley (1947), Swynnoe (2002), Donnelly (2007), Mazey (2020) and Brown and Davison’s (2013) volume on music for silent film. Donnelly’s work also encompasses an examination of the substantial tradition of British film musicals and of popular music in British film and TV (2015a), the latter also addressed in Inglis (2016). These texts have relevance to Irish contexts for several reasons: first, insofar as British studies sometimes encompass Northern Irish interests; second, because of many British composers’ historical involvement in Irish-themed productions; thirdly, because of the wider political legacies and shared cultures across both islands, including influences from British popular music and media in Ireland.
Hillman’s German Film, Music, and Ideology (2005) provides a rare example where potential interrelations between cinema, music and nation state are extensively interrogated. His consideration of traumatic historical legacies resonates to a degree with some of this book’s themes, albeit addressing very different political, economic and cultural trajectories. Other comparable studies include Egorova’s 1997 history of Soviet film music exploring interrelations of political and creative developments, and McMahon’s (2014) monograph on score composers’collaborations with French New Wave filmmakers.
A 2007 article by Brownrigg explores how music is conventionally utilized to signify ethnicity and/or place in mainstream screen productions, a tendency also examined in Coyle’s edited volume on Australian multicultural contexts (2005), including O’Shea’s chapter on music and Irish-Australian male identities. The present study also considers analyses that frame national cinema as Other to the mainstream of Hollywood and multinational interests, while acknowledging the problems of articulating or interpreting national distinctiveness in an era of increasing global capital and cultural flows. Earlier studies (McLoone 2000; Barton 2004) explored ideas of an in-between ‘third space’ or ‘third cinema’ (after Homi Bhabha), positioning Ireland and reading its audiovisual texts through the relatively unique vantage point of a European postcolonial nation state. This remains a useful concept for appraising various ‘waves’ of independent Irish cinema from the late 1970s. A third space approach resonates with film music studies in global contexts. Slobin (2008) maps out the international field in terms of Hollywood ‘supercultures’ and ‘subcultural cinema’, while a later collection of essays (Gil-Curiel 2016) adopts Deleuze and Guattari’s conception of ‘minor cinema’, interpreted by Stock (2016, 2) as ‘located firmly in the postcolonial moment, and . . . [involving] the imaginative remaking of national spaces through emancipatory uses of the language of “major cinema”’.
This book does not claim or delineate a unique strain of Irish film music. Instead, it interprets multifarious influences, approaches and resources in its overview of scores and soundtracks that relate to and/or are created in Ireland. These include original scores by Hollywood, British, Irish and continental European composers; colonial as well as national appropriations of indigenous and diasporic (Irish) musical repertoire and style (primarily, from traditional music); alternative approaches to music soundtracks (including those featuring avant-garde, electroacoustic, popular music, contemporary jazz, and sound-design led elements); and the potential for integrating ideas, idioms and materials from cultures and locations that are neither Hollywood nor Irish.
Music, the Moving Image and Ireland represents the first comprehensive study in its field, and complements existing case study analyses of original scores and soundtracks from Irish musicology and film studies (many of which are referenced throughout the book). It further aligns with a growing corpus of studies that consider music and national cinema in Europe (e.g. Mera and Burnand 2006) and beyond (e.g. Avila 2019; Morcom 2007).
Aims and methods
The book’s aims are threefold. The first aim is to map out the field by bringing together perspectives and case studies of music created for or reused in international Irish-themed screen productions and in national cinema and TV. This embraces distinct contributions by selected composers, directors and other producers. The second aim is to interpret a history, specifically, to consider material and ideological contexts underlying developments in domestic production or the lack thereof; to explore interrelations between music, film and national narratives (or counter-narratives); to consider the role of music in Hollywood and British productions based on Irish subjects; and to appraise music and sound design in modern and contemporary Irish cinema. The book’s third aim is analytical. It sets out to evaluate and discuss selected scores and soundtracks in relation to film texts, as well as to literary and other cultural works. Its analytic approach further considers the interplay of style, genre, space and place in Irish-themed and/or domestic screen productions.
The primary method undertaken for this work involved systematic readings of soundtracks and scores in combination with integrated audiovisual experiences, following Kassabian (2009, 44–50). Accordingly, most of the films referred to were viewed in their totality, with subsequent analyses of specific scenes or audio components. Score analysis is employed in some sections to illuminate the discussion; in these cases, technical concepts are kept to a minimum, and a glossary is provided for readers who may be unfamiliar with some of the musical terms used. A small number of notated examples are included for illustrative purposes. Several are based on composers’ original scores and sketches, with others aurally transcribed. For the most part though, textual analysis is based on audiovisual engagement with the hundreds of analogue and digital recordings viewed either on DVD or via streamed formats. A substantial number of reel-to-reel and VHS copies were consulted at collections held by the IFI and RTÉ, with additional rare titles accessed through the inter-library loan facility of Dublin City University. The research also involved consultation of letters, royalty statements and other archival materials and interviews with several composers and music producers.
Representing Ireland
Relative to its size and population, Ireland is the subject of considerable international attention. While this is arguably advantageous, many of its external cultural representations are built on national and ethnic stereotypes, a result of the country’s complex historical associations with the UK and the US, and a 20th-century history predominantly interpreted via the opposing yet dialectically linked perspectives of (post-)colonialism and nationalism. A related factor has been an historical pattern of economic emigration that reached its peak during and following the Great Famine from 1845 to 1849.
Essential ideas of Irish characterization and culture have varied roots. Overtly racist stereotypes of colonized and immigrant Irish groups in the mid-19th century
gradually gave way to more sympathetic if patronizing cultural depictions at the turn of the 20th century. This change reflected the growing influence and agency of diasporic groups, including the substantial involvement of Irish-America in theatre, music and early film. Concomitantly, several cultural movements were taking place across Ireland and among Irish communities in Britain, notably the literary and Gaelic revivals. This was a turbulent political and artistic milieu in which romanticized ideas of Irish culture, community and landscapes were consolidated in the imaginations of many internal and external observers. It coincided with and was in many ways linked to an emerging cinema culture from the 1900s.
The half-century following independence saw a decline in domestic screen production as dominant political, religious and cultural interests advanced nativist and essentialist conceptions of Irish culture within a much contracted economy (although narrow ideologies of Gaelic-Catholic nationalism did not go uncontested, and cinema remained highly popular). This mid-century cultural conservatism was echoed in international films based on Irish subjects, with many employing residual romantic or stage-Irish tropes, along with those based on insurrection and political violence.
As a separate entity constitutionally and culturally linked to Great Britain, while geographically and no less culturally connected to the Republic, Northern Ireland constitutes a society characterized by many unresolved political, sectarian and economic issues, notwithstanding a sustained period of peace since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Mid-century narrative films based on conflict in Northern Ireland were rare, and often reverted to Irish stereotypes in their avoidance or simplification of historical and political contexts (Hill 1988; 2006); and it was not until the 1980s that Irish and British filmmakers engaged substantially with the Troubles that erupted in 1968. A recurring theme identified in this book is the perpetuation of musical tropes in screen representations of political violence and sectarian strife in Northern Ireland, and how such characterizations obscure the complexities of British colonial involvement with the island as a whole.
Musical tropes and their alternatives: a book of three parts
On the negative side, screen representations of Ireland have typically focused on cultural isolationism, moral conservatism, economic stagnation, mass emigration, sectarian division, political conflict and depictions of aggression and violence. On the seemingly positive side, benign stereotypes have underlined rural asceticism, communitarian values, romantic pastoralism, picturesque Irish landscapes and the population’s proclivity for language, literature, music and other arts. Musical stereotypes often involved a Janus-faced ‘Paddy Mad/Paddy Sad’ persona (Smyth 2004, 4–5): one side reflecting the exuberance and, at times, frenetic abandon of traditional dance tune performance, the other evoked through elegiac or haunting slow airs. These reductive ideas have their origins in a complex amalgam of colonial and national constructions that delimited perceptions of the country’s musical culture to indigenous sources (White 1998, 1–13), thereby excluding other aspects of domestic production and reception, notably across classical and popular
forms. Irish musical stereotypes were further embedded and racialized in 19thcentury stage productions across the Anglophone world through the regular employment of stock dance tunes and songs—and later, through original pseudoIrish material—to signify Irish characters (Cave 1991; Williams 1996).
Part 1 of this book, ‘Irish Themes on Screen and in Sound’, comprises three chapters that explore the considerable number of Hollywood, British and continental European composers commissioned to score for Irish-themed features throughout the 20th century, on subjects ranging from diaspora/emigration to history/politics to cultural and literary themes. It also embraces the contributions of Irish composers, whose opportunities within this sphere were initially quite limited, but gradually increased, and the parallel engagement of local musicians, including orchestras and traditional groups.
Chapter 1 begins with a brief account of cinema and musical accompaniment in Ireland during the silent era. It then looks at Irish-themed sound film of the 1930s–1940s, appraising the extent to which Hollywood, British and Irish composers adopted stock/formulaic or more authentic materials and idioms of Irish music. Chapter 2 details how musical tropes of Irishness continued in original scores and other soundtrack components throughout the century’s second half. Although some 1970s soundtracks departed from conventional approaches to Irish themes, the 1980s–1990s saw several composers and musicians rework Irish stereotypes into mainstream film and TV scoring. Literature-to-film adaptations provide the theme for Chapter 3 that first explores music for screen versions of works by Synge, O’Casey and Joyce. It then examines an eclectic range of scoring practices for narrative features based on later 20th-century literature, some adopting nonHollywood approaches, with others returning to conventional sonic markers of Irishness.
Part 2, ‘Perception and Production from Within’, focuses on associations between music and the moving image that primarily emerge from productions filmed in Ireland and Northern Ireland, spanning the many political, economic and social changes experienced across the island from the 1920s to the millennium. That history included incremental developments in studio facilities, TV broadcasting, musical infrastructures and vernacular music-making, and a considerable involvement by Irish composers and performers in domestic screen productions. Combined, Chapters 4, 5 and 6 contemplate music produced for newsreel and various formats of TV programming, as well as for feature-length narrative and documentary film. Chapter 4 first considers insider perspectives on the independence struggle and broader anthropological-ideological constructions of Irish culture in the 1920s–1950s. It then examines music’s role in demarcating national identities in mid-century newsreel and rhetorical documentary, culminating in a series of commemorative productions from 1959 to 1966. Ensuing sections address soundtracks for later documentaries based on local industries and ways of life— including musical practices—and an interrogation of Celtic music theories and their subsequent influence on Irish-themed soundtracks. Historical and contemporary problems provide an overarching theme for Chapter 5. Beginning with music for TV series set during the long 19th century, it then appraises soundtracks to newsreel and documentary films based on the Northern Ireland Troubles. The
Introduction 9
focus next turns to music for essay films and documentaries critiquing the modern Republic, with a final section that examines soundtracks to millennial perspectives on post-independence history. Chapter 6 presents an overview of 20th-century Irish composers’ involvement with film and TV, from the first arrangements of traditional melodies to heroic commemorative scores to experimental approaches to soundtrack. It features composers who were/are primarily engaged with concert music, and includes analyses of selected works for Irish screen productions.
Encompassing the 1970s through to the 2010s, Part 3, ‘Cinematic and Musical Developments’, charts evolving approaches to soundtracks for Irish-based narrative film and TV. The first wave of an independent Irish cinema from the 1970s to the mid-1980s was largely experimental, with many filmmakers directly or indirectly critical of contemporary Ireland. A second wave from the late 1980s through the 1990s benefited from greater international investment if somewhat creatively limited by that influence. While traditional and popular musicians increasingly featured on soundtracks, Irish composers struggled for commissions in a more mainstream, commercial milieu. At the same time, domestic facilities for soundtrack production greatly improved through Windmill Lane, Westland and similarly equipped recording studios, and through the founding of the Irish Film Orchestra (IFO). Increasingly decentralized production processes from the early 21st century ensured a more sustainable base for Irish filmmakers, some of whom re-addressed the critical concerns of first-wave directors, albeit now more oriented towards transnational themes and collaborations.
Chapter 7 begins by considering music for first-wave narrative film, much of which addressed contemporary themes of marginalization. It then appraises soundtracks to Irish and internationally produced narrative features based on the Troubles, before its final section explores music for screenplays set during the War of Independence and Civil War, and the decades following independence. Chapter 8 charts the considerable presence of Irish traditional and popular music (contemporary and historical) in soundtrack compilations and original scores. It contemplates the film music contributions of composers/performers with traditional music backgrounds, before reviewing Irish-produced narrative features wherein music variously features in soundtrack and screenplay, from dance band and jazz to rock and pop genres.
The early 21st century saw an exponential rise in the number of Irish (co)productions. Chapter 9 reviews music and sound design for narrative film over this period, interpreting creative innovations and the resilience of established conventions through themes of soundtracks, places and spaces; crime drama; past traumas; contemporary social experience; and transnational perspectives. A concluding chapter appraises the first 120 years of associations between music, the moving image and Ireland. This leads to a review of soundtracks to 21st-century documentary features and newly composed scores for remastered silent film. The book closes with a discussion on recent developments in music and sound design for the screen, in Ireland as well as further afield.
